


Kaleidoscope

by MirrorMystic



Series: Among Eagles [12]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Gen, IN SPACE!, Multi, Polyamory, Refugees, Space Opera, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 16:40:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19066540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MirrorMystic/pseuds/MirrorMystic
Summary: A month after their getaway to Paradiso, the crew of the Sparrow are back in action-- or they would be, if Aabha would let them see any action. But as the new agent-in-command of Order asset Sparrow, Aabha seems reluctant to stretch her wings, taking on case work more tedious than challenging.That changes when the team takes a case aboard the Kaleidoscope, a Fae colony ship bearing refugees from the fallen Tir Tairngire. What begins as a routine escort duty soon becomes anything but, as trouble comes knocking on their client’s door. Now, Aabha, Kit, and Lily find themselves embroiled in a three-way conflict between bounty hunters, political assassins, and their client, Ambrosia, who doesn’t even seem to realize just how much danger she’s in…





	Kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this draft open for almost six weeks, so I'm beyond thrilled to finally have it done. Welcome back to Among Eagles, everyone! In this installment: chase scenes! Faeries in space! Police station shootouts!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the read! ^^

~*~  
  
Aabha’s room aboard the Sparrow was cramped even on the best of days. Space aboard a spaceship was at a premium, and this cabin was packed even before Kit and Lily moved in.  
  
Aabha liked that, believe it or not. It made the room feel cozy, lived-in. That’s why she’d been all too eager to add “and Kit!” “And Lily!” to the hand-drawn sign on their door. That’s why, whenever Lila wanted a girls’ night and wound up filling up their last remaining rectangle of floorspace, Aabha always said yes. Life aboard a spaceship gets lonely, and if it came down to going stir crazy or being packed into their cabin like sardines, Aabha knows what she’d prefer.  
  
Still, being so used to having her friends and family close by made it all the more jarring when they weren’t. There was no relief at having a little more space to stretch, a little more room to breathe. There was only the absence, so palpable it was suffocating.  
  
Aabha studied her reflection, projected out of the ceiling in hololithic light. The girls’ cabin had no room for a floor-length mirror, so she was making do with the holoprojector they usually used for movie night, simply set to camera mode.  
  
Aabha smoothed her hands down the sides of her kameez, red edged with gold, the long tunic accentuating her already slim, willowy form. Below that, her baggy white shalwar, cuffed tight around her ankles, and a pair of dark red flats.  
  
Aabha thoughtfully tugged at her braid, her hololithic doppelganger echoing the gesture. A moment later, her braid was coiled and pinned up in a tight bun, and her burnished gold dupatta, once worn loose and hanging from her shoulders like a scarf, was similarly wrapped tight around her collar.  
  
New mission, new look, or however that saying goes. Now, there was only one thing left.  
  
Aabha took her badge, shiny and new, and pinned it to her breast. She stared at her reflection in the holoprojector. The very image of the young professional stared back.  
  
Aabha took a deep breath, and sighed.  
  
“This isn’t how I thought this would be,” Aabha muttered aloud. She clicked a button on her comm, and the holoprojector blinked offline. But there were still images lingering in the corner of her vision. Not quite holograms.  
  
Ghosts.  
  
_“Hey. Look at me,” Kit urges, but Aabha doesn’t look. Her eyes stay fixed on the badge she’s turning, over and over, in her hands._ _  
_ _  
_ _“You’ve worked your ass off to get here. You deserve this! You should be proud!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Aabha feels Lily’s weight settle beside her, feels the hand on her shoulder. Again, she doesn’t look._ _  
_ _  
_ _“You don’t gotta like it,” Lily says gently. “You just gotta live with it. It’s gonna be alright.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Aabha huffs out a sigh. “...It’s not fair.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _Kit and Lily exchange glances. Lily just shakes her head, and smiles._ _  
_ _  
_ _“It rarely is.”_  
  
Aabha slid their cabin door shut, a fond hand lingering over their sign she stuck to the door. She marched up the Sparrow’s spinal hallway, past the crew quarters, the infirmary, the kitchen, the lounge. All of them empty, just like her room; empty, save for the absence, so thick it was like fog, lingering in the air.  
  
Aabha took the stairs up onto the Sparrow’s command deck, the bridge beside her and the officer’s cabins ahead. Aabha winced, another memory worming its way across the back of her eyes…  
  
_“...all I’m saying is, it’s not uncommon for Agents to be rotated out of the field for awhile,” Morgan argues. “There are worse things than having to take shifts at the Academy for a semester or two.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“No, no, no,” Crane insists. “This is some shit, Morgan. They’re only rotating you out so the damn Inquisition can save face!”_ _  
_ _  
_ _“I don’t like it, either,” Syl says, as patiently as she can manage, “but the decision has been made.”_ _  
_ _  
_ _The trio all turn to Aabha, leaning against the wall. She sighs, anxiously tugging at her braid._ _  
_ _  
_ _“...It’s not right,” she whispers._ _  
_ _  
_ _“Listen to me, Aabha,” Morgan urges. “This isn’t the end of the world. And, more importantly, this isn’t the end of this team…”_  
  
Aabha waved her hand, parting the fog of memories. Up ahead, Crane was waiting for her at the door to the control room. She stood at attention, a dataslate clutched to her chest.  
  
“We’re ready to begin when you are,” Crane said. “...Ma’am.”  
  
Aabha chuckled, and shook her head. “That still doesn’t sound right.”  
  
“You’ll grow into it,” Crane reassured. She leaned in, searching Aabha’s eyes. “Are you gonna be okay?”  
  
Aabha shot her a look. Crane raised a hand in apology.  
  
“It doesn’t take a psychic,” Crane said, sheepish.  
  
“I’ll be _fine_ ,” Aabha said, resolute. “As long as I have Kit and Lily on my side, there’s nothing I can’t do.”  
  
~*~  
  
Kit and Lily led the rest of the crew in a long groan of dismay.  
  
“Oh, Aabha, _another_ escort duty?” Kit complained.  
  
“C’mon, boss, that’s the fifth one this month!” Vincent whined.  
  
“Mister Capello,” Crane cut in. “That is your commanding officer you’re talking to.”  
  
Vincent jabbed a thumb towards Kit. “Oh, so _she’s_ allowed to complain?”  
  
“That’s girlfriend privilege buddy,” Kit said, cheeky.  
  
“Hey. Hey!” Robyn snapped her fingers. Kit and Vincent looked at her, and then she pointed them back towards Aabha.  
  
Aabha cleared her throat, fighting the urge to tug at her braid.  
  
“Now, um… I know our casework since Paradiso has been kind of… rote. But we should never complain about a simple job done well and with no complications, right?”  
  
There was a general lukewarm murmur of agreement around the circle. Aabha continued.  
  
“This particular case was forwarded to us from Order Intelligence, by Director Kamuro himself. I assured him we would give this case our full attention.”  
  
Aabha clicked a button on her comm. A hololithic image shimmered into place above the control room’s central dais, showing a middle-aged woman in an iridescent gown and silk wrap, twinkling electric green, blue and violet like the carapace of a dragonfly. Despite the elegance of her attire, the woman’s hair was a wild, frizzy red mane, and there was a manic twinkle in her eyes.  
  
“Everyone,” Aabha said, “meet our client, Madam Ambrosia Starflower.”  
  
Lily whistled appreciatively. “Damn. _Hello_ , Professor.”  
  
“Actually,” Crane chimed in, pushing her glasses up her nose, “she’s a specialist in the field of xenobotany, specifically as pertaining to the medicinal applications of Faerie plantlife.”  
  
Kit blinked. “...So… she’s a pharmacist.”  
  
“She’s a pharmacist.”  
  
“Traditional medicine has scarcely scratched the surface when it comes to tackling Malice’s brand of biological warfare,” Jaki explained. “Faith healers and arcanists have proven somewhat more effective, but healing through magic is a rare gift, and when it comes to long-term treatment, there’s still no substitute for non-magical healthcare.”  
  
“Madam Starflower believes that her research could help bridge the gap between magic and medicine, and to make treatment of Malice-borne illness more accessible to all,” Aabha explained. “She has a conservatory here, aboard the Fae colony ship _Kaleidoscope_ . Our orders are to pick her up, bring her back to the Watchtower, and then let Order Intelligence take it from there.”  
  
There was a pause, as if the team was waiting to hear more details. But apparently, their mission was exactly as simple and straightforward as it sounded.  
  
“...I know that sounds just like the sort of thing we’ve been doing all month,” Aabha said, sheepish, “but, again, there’s nothing wrong with a simple job done well. So we’ve done this kind of job plenty of times before; that just means we know what we’re doing.”  
  
Aabha clapped her hands, putting on a smile.  
  
“Now, then! Let’s get out there and get this done right!” she cried. “Dismissed!”  
  
~*~  
  
There was a staccato of small, sharp pops, before a spear of white lightning cut through the night sky. The Sparrow emerged from the warp, wreathed in crackling electricity, shedding a trail of frost and vapor like the tail of a comet.  
  
Lily didn’t get to see the spectacular light show haloing the Sparrow’s hull. She was peeking in on the control room, where Crane was showing Lila, in painstaking detail, how to operate the holoterminal. Lila looked up from her no-doubt comprehensive lesson and saw her sister over Crane’s shoulder. She gave Lily an eager wave. Lily smiled fondly and waved back.  
  
She took the stairs down to the Sparrow’s crew deck. Aabha was waiting down the hall. She scurried up to Lily, stopped just shy of diving into a hug, and shyly offered her hand instead. Lily took it with an affectionate squeeze.  
  
“Hey, you,” Lily smiled.  
  
“Hi,” Aabha murmured. She reached up to tug at her braid, on reflex, only to remember she’d pinned it up into a bun. “How, um. How did I do up there?”  
  
“What, up there?” Lily asked, nodding to the control room upstairs and sending her corkscrews bouncing. “You did fine.”  
  
Aabha’s smile turned playful. “Well, I hope I did better than _fine_ …”  
  
“You did _great_ ,” Lily urged, squeezing Aabha’s shoulder. “And don’t let Kit get you down about us sticking with routine escort duties for now. You’ll have time to grow into bigger cases.”  
  
“Thanks,” Aabha said gently. She leaned in and gave Lily the barest whisper of a kiss.  
  
“I can hear y’all talking about me,” Kit announced.  
  
Lily rolled her eyes. She took Aabha’s hand, and made their way into the lounge. Kit was waiting for them, wearing that devil-may-care grin that still managed to give Aabha that funny feeling in her chest.  
  
“You spreading rumors about me, Lily?” Kit asked, leaning back with her boots propped up. “You telling Aabha I was the one who finished all your soda? ‘Cuz I keep telling you, that was Vince.”  
  
“Get off,” Lily muttered, swatting Kit’s feet off the table. “And no, Kit. Aabha and I were just talking about our newest assignment.”  
  
Kit greeted Aabha with a kiss, curling up in the crook of her arm. “Oh yeah? And?”  
  
“I was telling her,” Lily continued, “that even if it gets kinda dull, we support her no matter what kind of case work she takes. _Right?_ ”  
  
“Oh, babe…” Kit petulantly bonked her head into Aabha’s shoulder. “How long is the Council gonna keep us on delivery duty?”  
  
Aabha fidgeted. Once again, she found herself instinctively reaching over her shoulder.  
  
“Kit, I’m still new to this,” Aabha said. “I think it’s best if, for now, I just concentrate on staying afloat.”  
  
“Or,” Kit suggested, “we can take a nice, juicy case and dive right into the deep end. Sink or swim, y’know?”  
  
“That’s bold talk for someone who only learned how to swim a month ago,” Lily teased.  
  
Kit huffed. “So did _you_ !”  
  
Aabha watched with a weary fondness as a pair of shoves turned into Kit and Lily’s usual roughhousing. They chased each other, grinning, around the ship’s lounge, passing by a bemused Yuna standing in the door. Aabha stood up, holding out her arms and bringing her girls to a halt.  
  
“Agent Puri,” Yuna said, clasping her hands in front of her and dipping into a bow. “If you would care to join us on the bridge, we are making our final approach.”  
  
~*~  
  
“You know, it’s not like it is in the movies,” Lila mused.  
  
“Oh, yes? How so?” Crane asked.  
  
“Well, in the movies, asteroid fields are always, like, packed,” Lila said. She nodded to Vincent. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah,” Vincent agreed. “They’re all crashing into each other, and you gotta swerve around ‘em. Have a sweet chase scene.”  
  
“But here,” Lila continued, gesturing out front. “Here, the other asteroids are so far away I can’t even see them!”  
  
Robyn chuckled. “Well. It _is_ called ‘space’ for a reason…”  
  
Aabha, Kit and Lily joined the rest of the team on the bridge just as their destination began to loom into view. An asteroid, lazily spinning through the blackness of space, with a massive vessel perched upon it-- less of a ship, and more of a space station. Lines rose from the station’s central hub like the stamen of a flower, long, thin boarding tubes and the skeletal frames of maintenance catwalks. Radiating out from the station’s central hub were six huge plasteel domes, with dozens of smaller domes layered between. As the station gently rotated into view, it caught the frail light of the system’s star. It glittered like a jewel buried in the rock it sat upon; a flower blooming in the wasteland.  
  
_“Order vessel,”_ a stern voice crackled from the ship’s comms. _“You are entering Fae airspace. Identify yourself, and your intentions.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “This is freighter CS-773, designation ‘Sparrow’, requesting permission to dock,” Robyn said. She reached over and flashed Yuna a smile. “I’ve got clearance codes for ya. My _lovely_ co-pilot is transmitting them now.”  
  
A pause. Then:  
  
_“You are cleared to dock, Sparrow. Proceed to docking cradle 175…”_ _  
_ _  
_ Aabha stood apart, pensive. She watched in silence as the Sparrow made its final approach, one arm folded across her chest, the other propping up her chin. She kept having to fight the urge to reach over her shoulder and tug at her braid. She took a deep breath, and let it go.  
  
“Are you alright?” Crane murmured.  
  
No point in denying it. “I wish Morgan and Syl were here,” Aabha said.  
  
“I know,” Crane said gently. “I miss them, too. But I don’t think they’d be too thrilled to be taking this particular case.”  
  
Aabha looked up. “Why?”  
  
Crane shrugged. “Bad memories. Memories of home.”  
  
“Of home…?” Aabha gasped, a hand over her mouth. “Then… Then this is…!”  
  
“Yes, Aabha,” Crane nodded gravely. “This asteroid field is… or _was_ … Tir Tairngire.”  
  
Tir Tairngire. The shattered planet. Once, one of the pillars of Fae civilization. Now, a debris field mournfully orbiting its parent star. Aabha stared out of the Sparrow’s viewport, aghast. For a planet to be destroyed so thoroughly, only for gravity to keep its remains circling the star in a constant, silent vigil…  
  
“The Kaleidoscope was part of Tir Tairngire’s final evacuation,” Crane explained, somber. “After the planet fell to Malice, the colonial fleet was supposed to disperse into neighboring systems, try to find the Fae a new home.”  
  
Crane shook her head.  
  
“...And yet here they are. Clinging to the past. Scraping out a future in the middle of a mass grave.”  
  
~*~  
  
The Sparrow gently eased itself into a docking cradle, suspended a fair distance away from the station proper. Rather than taking the Sparrow’s primary boarding ramp, wide enough for transferring cargo, the mission team was going to use the secondary hatch, right beside the bridge. Outside, a boarding tube whirred into place, the magnetic clamps around its rim poised like lamprey teeth. It latched onto the Sparrow’s side with a pressurized hiss.  
  
The mission team departed, single-file. Aabha hadn’t wanted to cause a scene by bringing the whole team aboard the Kaleidoscope. So, they were traveling light, and bringing just three: Aabha, Kit, Lily, and the voices in their heads.  
  
_“Sparrow to away team, comm check, one, two, three.”_  
  
“One,” Aabha answered.  
  
“Two,” Kit said.  
  
“Three,” Lily smiled.  
  
_“Oh man, this is cool,”_ Lila grinned. _“I feel, like, so official.”_  
  
_“Listen, girls,”_ Crane spoke up. _“Lila and I will be monitoring your progress from the control room. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”_  
  
“Yeah, I’ve got a question,” Kit cut in. “How come they’re making us walk all this way?”  
  
“Security,” Lily explained. “Probably the same reason this tube’s only wide enough for us to go one at a time.”  
  
“They want to keep a safe distance,” Aabha said. “In case there’s a malfunction, or a crash. They don’t want to risk any damage to the station at all.”  
  
_“Quite right,”_ Crane said. _“And for similar reasons, the Kaleidoscope has a strict ban on firearms of all kinds. However, security should allow you to keep your melee weapons, so long as you check them in.”_  
  
Kit proudly patted the paired sheaths on her back.  
  
“Hopefully that’ll be plenty,” she grinned.  
  
“Hopefully we won’t _need_ them,” Aabha chided.  
  
“How about you, Lily?” Kit asked.  
  
“Who knows?” Lily teased. “Maybe I’ll just have to get creative.”  
  
“Oooh, tell me more…” Kit cooed.  
  
“Eyes up, guys,” Aabha urged. “Here we go…”  
  
The claustrophobic confines of the long, winding boarding tube opened out into a wide atrium that felt no less confining-- there was a security checkpoint at the head of the hall, and a squad of guards already waiting for them. A dozen masked footmen stood assembled in two facing rows, funneling the team towards their officers waiting at the end of the line. One was a petite woman with a mousey mop of hair and a severe expression; her partner was taller and thinner, with a welcoming smile. Both wore deep green armor edged with bronze, and the iridescent K-SEC crest glittered on their shoulder plates.  
  
“Agents!” greeted the taller officer, while his partner simply folded her arms and scowled. “Welcome to the Kaleidoscope. I am Captain Valen Antares of the Emerald Knights. This is my right-hand woman, Ser Morwen Hest.”  
  
“A pleasure to meet you, sers,” Aabha said, dipping into a bow. “I am Agent Aabha Puri, and these are my Enforcers Sato and Chase. We thank you for having us aboard.”  
  
“Of course, of course,” Valen smiled. “We’ll let you get right to your business in due time. But first, a few precautions. May we check your weapons, Agent Puri?”  
  
Aabha nodded her team forward. She offered a waiting footman her chakrams; another footman jotted them down on his dataslate, handed the slate to Aabha, and made her sign for them. Kit did the same with her heat blade and dagger in their paired sheaths. She signed for them on the footman’s dataslate, and then they took their weapons back, Kit slinging her sheaths over her shoulder and Aabha clicking her chakrams back into the magnetic locks on her armor’s thigh plates. Lily didn’t hand anything over.  
  
The footman checked over his slate, before nodding to the captain. Valen held up a hand.  
  
“Just a quick search, and you can be on your way,” he said with a smile.  
  
“Alright, you three,” Morwen said. “Arms out, feet apart, no sudden moves.”  
  
Morwen stepped in and frisked the trio for hidden weapons, one by one, rolling her eyes when Kit asked her if she shouldn’t buy her dinner first. So far, so good.  
  
Morwen’s hands skimmed down the side of Lily’s coat. Suddenly, she stopped, and scowled.  
  
Out of Lily’s coat, she withdrew a dense metal cylinder. With a flick of her wrist, it extended into a stun baton, crackling with phasic energy.  
  
“Oops,” Lily smiled innocently. “Sorry. I forgot about that one.”  
  
Morwen shook her head. She collapsed the baton down into storage size, and handed it to a waiting footman. He took it, noted it down in his slate, and made Lily sign for it. Then he gave it back.  
  
“Well, that wraps things up here,” Valen said brightly. “Can I offer you an escort? The Kaleidoscope can be quite large and quite confusing for guests such as yourselves.”  
  
“Thank you, ser,” Aabha said. “But I don’t think that will be necessary.”  
  
“Of course,” Valen smiled. He seemed to do that a lot. “Well, please, enjoy your stay…”  
  
The girls made their way out of the docks, the eyes of the security squad boring into their backs the whole time. Aabha strode down the hall, a radiant vision in her gleaming saffron armor and flowing crimson sari, dimmed by the stiffness in her gait and the nerves buzzing in her head.  
  
Aabha’s comm chirped. She reached up and clicked in her earpiece.  
  
“Go,” she said.  
  
_“Check your comm,”_ Crane instructed. _“I have a map of the Kaleidoscope ready, and I have Lila plotting you a route to Madam Starflower’s conservatory as we speak.”_ _  
_ _  
_ “Thank you, Crane,” Aabha said. “I’ll keep you posted.”  
  
_“Tread carefully, Aabha,”_ Crane urged. _“We’re not welcome here.”_  
  
Aabha glanced over her shoulder, and felt the Knights staring back.  
  
“Don’t worry,” she said, pressing her lips into a line. “I know.”  
  
“Hey,” Kit said, jabbing an elbow into Lily’s side. “Since when do you have a stun baton?”  
  
Lily grinned. “You know me. I gotta keep some tricks up my sleeves.”  
  
“Yeah, but they found it,” Kit teased.  
  
“Sure they did,” Lily winked. “People think they’re done when they find something. That’s usually when they stop checking.”  
  
“Alright, guys,” Aabha clapped. “Let’s get this done, quick and clean. Kit, Crane sent a layout of this place to your comm, so take the lead and keep an eye out for trouble. Lily, get Madam Starflower on your comm and let her know we’re on our way.”  
  
~*~  
  
“Good to know, dearie! I’ll see you all in just a moment.”  
  
Ambrosia smiled brightly and clicked off her comm, whistling a merry tune. She clutched a dataslate to her chest with one hand, the other brushing through the flowering bushes dotting the grassy trail. She stooped down for a moment, heedless of how the hem of her dress dragged in the dirt as she did so. She smiled, lifting up a broad, heart-shaped leaf.  
  
“Oh, my dear, you’re coming in nicely, aren’t you…?” Ambrosia cooed. She pulled out her slate and jotted down a few notes with her stylus. She paused, and then went ahead and added a smiley face, for good measure.  
  
“Madam Starflower?”  
  
Ambrosia squeaked in surprise and dropped her slate on the grass. She glanced down at it, blinking.  
  
“I can get that later,” she said, sheepish. “Can I help you, miss…?”  
  
Ambrosia squinted into the Kaleidoscope’s artificial sunlight. She reached for the pair of glasses hanging around her neck and set them on her nose. A woman’s lithe silhouette sauntered into view.  
  
“Ah!” Ambrosia broke into a smile. “You must be the Agents! You really weren’t kidding when you said you were just a moment away. You, ah… sound different over the comm.”  
  
“I get that a lot,” the woman smiled.  
  
She nodded to someone over Ambrosia’s shoulder. Ambrosia turned, following her eyes. What she found was a giant of a man, so tall and so broad in his armor that Ambrosia could fit snugly within his shadow. She craned her head up, blinking owlishly through her glasses.  
  
“‘Scuse me, ma’am. But you’re coming with us,” the giant rumbled. “Nothing personal. You understand.”  
  
~*~  
  
Beyond the sterile white of the docking bays, entering the Kaleidoscope was like entering a new world. The ship was the size of a city, more than large enough to get lost in. Aabha found herself immediately grateful that Lila had taken the time to plot them a course to Ambrosia’s conservatory.  
  
And it certainly didn’t feel like they were on a spaceship. Every inch of the Kaleidoscope’s interior was ablaze with color, from the dusty red cobblestones lining their path to the brilliant blue and violet banners flying overhead. Huge residential spires served as columns propping up the environmental domes, bisected by platforms and balconies overlooking the streets below. The spires reminded Aabha of the platform villages she’d once seen on a case she’d taken to a swamp planet; wooden platforms and rope bridges, suspended high above the ooze. Only this was on a much larger scale, grand and glorious.  
  
“Damn, would you look at this place?” Kit asked, grinning. “This place is amazing.”  
  
“And this is just a piece of it,” Aabha mused. “Imagine what it must have been like before Tir Tairngire fell.”  
  
“I dunno,” Lily murmured. “There’s something off about this place…”  
  
“Yeah,” Kit agreed. “I feel like these guys don’t much care for tourists.”  
  
“It’s not just that,” Lily said. She looked up as they passed under the shadow of a residential spire, the broad platform midway up the column cutting off the upper tiers from view. “Everything’s so bright and beautiful. Not like Persephone. But I feel like… deep down, every city looks the same. And there’s something else, too. Like this place is…”  
  
“Haunted?” Kit teased. Lily punched her in the arm.  
  
“Morbid?” Aabha offered.  
  
“Yeah, that’s more like it,” Lily said.  
  
“I think I know what you mean,” Aabha said quietly. She gestured to the giant slope of the environmental domes overhead. “All of this, it feels… morbid. Like this place died with Tir Tairngire, and we’re walking through its memorial. Or a museum. A snapshot of days gone by, preserved behind glass.”  
  
They shuffled along in silence, quietly noting the suspicious looks they were drawing from every Faerie they walked past. A somber quiet fell over the trio, one that Kit felt compelled to break.  
  
“It feels weird not having the twins around,” Kit muttered.  
  
“I know,” Lily said. “I miss ‘em, too.”  
  
“Morgan and Syl were Fae, weren’t they?” Kit asked. “I wonder if they knew Ambrosia.”  
  
“Why, ‘cuz all Faeries know each other?” Lily teased.  
  
“What? Don’t they?” Kit blinked. “Is that racist?”  
  
“Little bit.”  
  
Aabha just rolled her eyes with a weary fondness. Kit and Lily brushed up against her on either side, and she took their hands with a squeeze. They never failed to coax a smile out of her, even at times like these.  
  
“Remember, guys,” Aabha chided, “we’re on a mission, here. We’re not just taking a leisurely stroll through the woods.”  
  
“Shame,” Kit grinned. “It’s a hell of a view.”  
  
It truly was. The team passed under a vast, vaulted arch and entered one of the Kaleidoscope’s six primary bio-domes. A world of wonder awaited them, one more chaotic and organic than the tiered city of the central hub, but one no less teeming with life and color. Huge trees rose into the domed ceiling like marble columns in a cathedral, their bark glittering green and gold. Vines and creepers shivered, bioluminescence flashing across their forms in the dome’s dim half-light. The crowded canopy cast the forest floor in twilight, but will’o’wisps lit their way; semi-sentient wisps of colored flame floated along the path at head height, like torches bobbing in the distance. They were born of this forest, coalescing out of the magically charged atmosphere and animated in a semblance of life.  
  
The girls traveled in a hushed, reverent quiet. There was a beauty here, a wonder and majesty that took their breath away. But there was a grief, too, as thick and palpable as the humidity beneath the trees.  
  
Lily craned her head up, gazing up at the forest with unabashed wonder. These woods, even this small fragment of Tir Tairngire preserved in a bio-dome, could not have been more different from the urban grime of Persephone if they tried.  
  
“This place is… magical,” Lily murmured, entranced.  
  
“You said it, sister,” Kit agreed. She poked at a nearby wisp. It flitted away through the trees.  
  
“Almost _too_ magical,” Aabha said, rubbing at her temples. “I can feel it. Under our feet, in the air, in the trees. These woods are so supercharged with arcane power it’s giving me a headache.”  
  
There was a blurt of garbled static in her ear.  
  
“Say again, Sparrow?” Aabha asked, tapping her comm.  
  
Another blurt of static. Aabha huffed in frustration.  
  
“What, is this place fucking with our comms, too?” Lily wondered.  
  
“Maybe,” Kit shrugged.  
  
“No,” Aabha said.  
  
She lifted her head, amber eyes glinting in the twilight.  
  
“There’s something _here_ .”  
  
Lily cried out. She vanished into the undergrowth in a rustling of leaves and a cry of alarm abruptly cut short.  
  
“Lily!” Kit cried, and charged right after her.  
  
“Kit, wait!” Aabha called. She started after Kit--  
  
\--and recoiled as a lunging vine whipped past her face.  
  
Three more vines shot out of the twilight. They cracked off of Aabha’s chakrams, the blades ringing as she slapped them away. Another quartet shot out of the undergrowth-- Aabha somersaulted over the lunging vines, and brought her chakrams down in a scissoring chop. Severed vines tumbled into the dirt and fell inert, the animated vines retreating back into the dark.  
  
Aabha brandished her chakrams, gazing out into the trees. Suddenly, this forest so full of color and beauty had become close, claustrophobic and sinister. Aabha growled.  
  
“Kit!” she called. “Lily!”  
  
A vine lunged out of the undergrowth. Aabha deftly stepped aside and cut it apart, only for another lashing vine to slap the chakram out of her hand. A vine wrapped around her wrist, and Aabha brought her chakram’s twin to bear. Another vine yanked it from her hands, wrapped around her other wrist and pulled her arms taut. Yet two more vines coiled around her ankles and yanked her back, forcing her to her knees.  
  
Aabha seethed. She clenched her fists and bellowed out a war cry.  
  
Fire exploded out of her form and incinerated her bindings. Ashes spilled from her limbs, and she rose, shrouded in an aura of hellish red flame, her amber eyes flashing crimson--  
  
The flames abruptly vanished. Aabha grimaced, clutching her head.  
  
“...no…” she whispered, forcing the wildfire down.  
  
Vines shot out of the undergrowth once more, binding Aabha’s arms behind her back and coiling tight. Aabha winced, glancing between her fallen chakrams on the forest floor and a silhouette in the distance-- a hooded figure, with just the barest hint of eyes in the dark.  
  
The vines pulled taut. Aabha exhaled, and let her opponent drag her away.  
  
~*~  
  
Aabha fell to her knees in the dirt, her torso bound in a cocoon of vines. She glanced beside her and met Lily’s eyes. Then they looked up, drawn to the dull metal thumps of a man in powered armor clapping his gauntleted hands.  
  
“Well, well, well,” he said with a jocular grin. “Look who we have here.”  
  
Aabha locked eyes with her captor.  
  
“Kresnik,” she growled.  
  
The giant stepped into the light, looming into view. He was a shave-headed brute with an irritatingly smug smile. Without his armor, he would have been a large man. With it, he was a wall of muscle and off-white ceramite. Time and conflict had scoured Kresnik’s armor of any paint it once wore, and his face was similarly scarred and weather-beaten. But beneath his daunting exterior, there was a sense of mirth; a jarringly cheerful demeanor that some might almost find threatening if it weren’t so grating on the nerves.  
  
“Hey, Junior,” Kresnik smiled. “Did you miss me?”  
  
Aabha sighed. “It’s, uh. It’s ‘Agent’ now.”  
  
“No foolin’?” Kresnik raised an eyebrow. “Well, hey, look who’s movin’ up in the world.”  
  
A woman appeared, with short, choppy dark hair and a camo-cloak draped over her shoulders. Ambrosia was with her, her hands tied behind her back and the other woman firmly gripping her arm.  
  
“Nik,” she chided, annoyed. “I didn’t come here to beat up kids.”  
  
“Don’t call ‘em kids, Raney,” Kresnik said. “These two are the real deal. Trust me.”  
  
“I’m _flattered_ ,” Lily grumbled.  
  
“You guys haven’t met,” Kresnik said, sidling up to Raney. She casually sidestepped his palm before he could clap her on the shoulder, leaving him to simply wave awkwardly. Kresnik cleared his throat. “Guys, this is Raney. She’s also in the bounty business. And, of course, you guys know the Doc.”  
  
Raney nudged Ambrosia forward. She flashed the girls a bright, strangely chipper smile.  
  
“Oh! _You_ must be the Agents I was expecting!” Ambrosia chortled. “I see, now. This was all a grand misunderstanding! How very embarrassing for me, oh dear, oh dear…”  
  
“Oh, great, another chatterbox…” Raney murmured.  
  
“Were _you_ the plant mage who ambushed us?” Lily wondered.  
  
“Nah,” Raney sniffed, nodding. “Blame him.”  
  
Aabha followed the woman’s eyes and jumped, startling. There was a man standing in Kresnik’s shadow, so silent and still she hadn’t even noticed him until now. He was a gaunt figure in a long, hooded robe the color of freshly-tilled soil.  
  
“He’s new,” Kresnik explained. “We call him Veil.”  
  
Aabha glowered up at their captors, studying them in the twilight filtering through the trees. Veil, taking pains to hide his face. Kresnik’s armor, scraped clean of paint after a lifetime of fighting. Raney’s shimmering camo-cloak, able to change color to blend into any environment, but defaulting to a ghostly slate gray.  
  
They were shadows, islands of monochrome in a world overflowing with color. The Kaleidoscope was a place where one proclaimed their allegiances in the most gaudy and garish manner they could find. But here these three were, like holes cut out of the world, their colorless guises silently showing their loyalties-- or lack thereof.  
  
But there was one exception to this. One splash of color in all that gray.  
  
Though Veil hid his face under a hood and a cloth mask over his mouth, his eyes betrayed him. They were the intense, vivid eyes of a Faerie, in a violet so rich they were almost glowing.  
  
Aabha tore her gaze away. Her ears were ringing, not just with the trace energy of a magic Aabha couldn’t identify, but with a memory, a bit of advice from ages ago.  
  
_“Never look into a Faerie’s eyes,” Morgan had said. “That’s where we keep our secrets.”_  
  
“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Kresnik was saying. “If we knew y’all were comin’, why not just grab the Doc and bolt before you even knew we were here? Well, we were thinkin’ about it, not gonna lie. Raney wanted to see if we could sneak on outta here.”  
  
Kresnik chuckled, patting his chestplate.  
  
“But I’m a big guy, don’tcha know. No disguising me. So Veil suggested we stick around until you guys arrived. And then, when you got here, we'd... deal with you.”  
  
A chill breeze sent a shiver down Aabha’s back. Aabha glanced into the trees for just a moment, before her eyes flicked back to Kresnik and his crew.  
  
“So,” Lily said, her voice cold, “are you going to kill us, Kresnik?”  
  
“What are you, nuts? No!” Kresnik scoffed. “...We’re just gonna leave y’all tied up until the Knights come to find you.”  
  
“Fire mage,” Aabha reminded him.  
  
“Well,” Raney shrugged, “until we get a good head start, at least.”  
  
“Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re gonna take the Doc on a little walk,” Kresnik smiled. “Nothing personal. You understand.”  
  
Another breeze rustling the trees and the hair on the back of Aabha’s neck. A wind, cool and familiar. Aabha splayed her fingers.  
  
“It was good seeing you again, Mister Kresnik,” Aabha said.  
  
Kresnik’s grin broadened. “Hey, right back atcha.”  
  
“I just have one question, before you go,” Aabha said sweetly.  
  
“Sure. Shoot.”  
  
Aabha’s smile turned dangerous.  
  
“Have you met our girlfriend?”  
  
Wind exploded down the clearing in a furious gale that stopped Kresnik and Raney in their tracks and hurled Veil off his feet. From behind, the roaring wind rang with the sound of singing metal and the padding of charging feet.  
  
Aabha set her bonds ablaze and tore through them in a cloud of embers. She somersaulted into the air,  caught her chakrams as they flew obediently into her hands, and watched as a russet fox came sprinting out of the woods like an auburn comet.  
  
The fox charged, wreathed in golden light. It curled its legs beneath it and pounced. Kit emerged from the shining nimbus and sent Raney crashing to the ground with a flying kick.  
  
Aabha stuck the landing, spun her ring blades, and cleaved through Lily’s bonds with a single red-hot stroke. Lily threw her hands forward. Two shimmering blue orbs flew from her coat sleeves and detonated in swirls of icy-blue light, covering the ground at Veil and Kresnik’s feet in a thick layer of frost.  
  
“Kit, go!” Aabha and Lily cried together.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Kit yelled. She snatched up Ambrosia’s hand and yanked her away.  
  
They took off down the conservatory trail, making a beeline for the huge arch that marked the way back to the Kaleidoscope’s central hub.  
  
The regular thump of Ambrosia’s footfalls changed to an insectile buzzing. Kit glanced sidelong and realized that, rather than try to keep pace with her on foot, Ambrosia had simply summoned her wings and allowed Kit to pull her along while she hovered.  
  
Ambrosia’s wings were translucent panes of semi-solid light, glittering green, blue, and violet to match her dress. Rather than the broad, leaf-shaped butterfly wings that Kit had known Morgan and Syl to sport, Ambrosia’s were narrow and knife-like, like a dragonfly’s.  
  
“I like your wings,” Kit called, as they ran.  
  
“Oh yes?” Ambrosia tittered. “Thank you, dearie! They’re faster than my legs, at any rate. May I know you?”  
  
“Enforcer Sato. Call me Kit.”  
  
“Oh! A pleasure, young lady,” Ambrosia smiled. “I am Ambrosia Starflower, a specialist in the field of xenobotany, particularly as it pertains to the medicinal applications--”  
  
“I know, I know. You’re a pharmacist.”  
  
“Please,” Ambrosia scoffed. “I’m an _artist_ .”  
  
Kit’s ears twitched. Something was coming up on them from behind. Something making a rhythmic hiss and whir, getting closer, closer--  
  
Kit let go of Ambrosia’s hand and dove aside. An instant later, a lashing cable gouged a slash in the ground longer than Kit was tall.  
  
Raney coiled her body through the air and landed in a crouch. Her cables zipped across the clearing and retracted back into her gauntlets with a click, disappearing within her armor and into the twin spools forming a figure-eight on her back.  
  
“That’s a nice trick,” Kit said, wary.  
  
“Thank you,” Raney said. She stood, her waist-length camo-cloak flitting in the breeze. “You know, normally I only use those to save time getting to a new sniper perch. Lucky for you, security wouldn’t let me bring my gun.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Kit muttered, reaching for her swords. “Lucky me…”  
  
Kit ducked under a whizzing cable, and darted aside as another shot over her shoulder. A second later, the cables pulled taut and Raney shot forward, flooring Kit with a flying kick. Kit hit the ground hard, gingerly rubbing her jaw. Raney’s whips came flashing across the clearing. Two sharp cracks, and Kit swatted them aside in flashes of sparks, her sword gleaming in her hands.  
  
“Stay behind me,” Kit warned.  
  
“Ah, yes,” Ambrosia tittered, studying Kit’s sword. “Seeing as the front of you is rather, ah, sharp…”  
  
The ground rumbled behind them. A mass of vines and roots erupted from the ground, forming a groping hand of vegetation. Kit splayed her palm-- a shimmering green gale of magicked wind burst from her hands and ripped into the mass, turning it aside. Kit ushered Ambrosia behind her and started backing away, her sword ready in one hand, her dagger drawn with the other.  
  
Veil emerged from the treeline, violet eyes shining from within the shadow of his hood. Despite his shadowy appearance, his voice was haughty, refined.  
  
“You have something that does not belong to you,” he spat.  
  
“She doesn’t belong to you, or anyone,” Kit growled.  
  
“She belongs to her _people_ ,” Veil said coldly. “Not with an outsider lackey like you.”  
  
Kit swallowed hard, and adjusted her grip on her paired blades. She glanced between Veil and Raney, closing in on either side. She took a deep breath, and let it out slow.  
  
Kit’s lips curled into a dangerous grin.  
  
“So,” she snarled, “are we doing this? Or is that not enough foreplay?”  
  
Raney fired her cables. Veil threw his vines forward. Kit spun her sword in her hands, fell to one knee, and plunged it into the ground.  
  
A tornado of wheat-gold wind blazed to life, deflecting vines and cables alike into the surrounding woods. Kit crossed her blades across her chest, glinting a dusky yellow with channeled magic. There, she and Ambrosia stood, in the eye of the storm.  
  
“Where do we go from here?” Ambrosia wondered.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Kit grinned. “I can do this all day.”  
  
Unfortunately, Kit was tempting fate. The two mercenaries renewed their attack, pushing their weapons through the scything winds. Kit rose, and parried a lashing cable with a shrieking cloud of sparks. Raney’s whips shot through the cloud, again and again, clashing against Kit’s blades.  
  
Veil had transformed his vines, from lush green into hardened wood, tipped with sharpened stakes. They forced their way in through the scything gale, closing in on all sides…  
  
There was a metallic click. Fire ignited within Kit’s summoned tornado, and transformed her winds into a spiraling firestorm. Kit pulled Ambrosia down, shielding them in a bubble of clean air. As the encroaching vines burnt to a crisp and flaked away to ash, a silhouette dropped out of the trees and into their midst.  
  
“Aabha?” Kit wondered.  
  
“Nah,” Lily smiled. “It’s me.”  
  
Kit nodded to the firestorm around them, granting them a momentary reprieve.  
  
“So, this is new,” Kit said.  
  
Lily raised her arms, showing off a pair of bead bracelets that glinted strangely in the light.  
  
“Picked up some new toys,” she explained. “Shanti and Vince hooked me up.”  
  
“Sweet.”  
  
“I’m sweeter,” Lily teased.  
  
Kit tugged Lily into a kiss, grinning.  
  
Lily gasped and shoved Kit away. A cable shot through the flames and slammed into the ground.  
  
An explosion of upturned soil spilled into the air and parted the firestorm. Raney leapt through the trees, her whips flashing in the smoke. Behind them, another wave of lashing vines came diving out of the trees at Veil’s silent command.  
  
Lily pulled a magnetic bead out of her bracelet and pinched it between two fingers, the bead coming alight with a frost-blue glow. She hurled the device into the mass of vines, and the miniature cryo grenade detonated, stopping it in its tracks. Lily extended her baton with a snap, and smashed the snap-frozen mass of vines in a cloud of glittering ice. Beside her, Kit blasted Raney aside with a conjured wind and sent her tumbling across the clearing.  
  
Raney shot her whips out into nearby tree trunks and arrested her fall, pulling herself back to her feet. She and Veil circled their prey, undeterred. Kit and Lily faced them down together, Ambrosia warily huddled between them.  
  
“Alright, Lily,” Kit muttered. “I’m guessing Aabha’s still tied up with the big dude. So. Do you wanna take Whip Lady or Vine Guy?”  
  
“It’s just two different flavors of tentacles,” Lily rolled her eyes. “You know what they say about those.”  
  
“Oh, do I ever…” Kit drawled.  
  
“Tentacles?” Veil scoffed, affronted. “You peasants have no appreciation for the artistry of a true plant magus--”  
  
A conjured wind slammed into Veil like a speeding train and unceremoniously blasted Veil back into the woods.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Kit said, flippant. She nodded to Ambrosia. “She’s a pharmacist. And _you’re_ a gardener.”  
  
“Strictly speaking, I could _also_ be considered a gardener!” Ambrosia chirped.  
  
“I thought you were an artist,” Kit said dryly.  
  
Kit yelped, a cable clashing against her sword. She parried another lash, sparks flying from her blade. Lily took Kit’s shoulder and pulled her behind her, reaching into her sleeves. She threw her hands forward, hurling an array of elemental micro-grenades.  
  
Raney’s whips flashed through the gloom. Lily’s gadgets detonated against the lashing cables, bursting into clouds of crackling electricity, gouts of flame, puffs of powdered frost.  
  
A baton slammed into Raney’s stomach. Lily darted through the smoke, cracked Raney across the jaw and then swept her legs. Raney teetered, off-balance, and Kit rolled across Lily’s shoulders, throwing an open palm towards Raney’s chest.  
  
A shining wheat-gold gale blasted Raney into the undergrowth. She hit the ground like a thunderclap, but even as she fell, she fired her cables. Kit and Lily yelped, dragged off their feet and into the dirt. Raney’s whips retracted into her gauntlets, and she pulled herself off the ground, a palm pressed against her aching gut.  
  
“You kids aren’t half bad,” Raney eked out, panting. She locked eyes with Ambrosia in the clearing beyond. “But I’m not here for you.”  
  
Raney fired a cable. It zipped across the clearing, making a beeline for Ambrosia’s legs-- but Kit got there first. Kit spun Raney’s whip around her dagger and then plunged it into a tree. Raney pulled the cable taut, but it wouldn’t budge.  
  
Raney growled, and fired her second whip, this one aimed squarely at Kit’s head. Lily caught the whip around her baton, pulled it taut, and clicked the activation stud.  
  
Electricity shot down the wire and surged into Raney’s battlesuit. She seized, lightning suffusing her form.  
  
Kit’s heat blade fell like a comet. With a metallic shriek, Raney’s whips, held under tension, snapped back across the clearing. Raney slammed into a tree, a ragged metal X carved into her armor. She crumpled to the ground, and was still.  
  
Kit and Lily stood together, panting. They met each other’s eyes, exchanged sheepish smiles.  
  
“Not bad,” Kresnik said.  
  
The girls whirled around, only for Kresnik to grab them by the arms and knock their heads together. He tossed them aside, leaving them to roll dazed in the dirt.  
  
Ambrosia conjured her wings and made for the treetops. Kresnik’s armored paw clamped tight around her ankles and yanked her back down. He unceremoniously stuffed her flailing form into a burlap sack and casually slung her over his shoulder.  
  
“Kresnik!” Lily called, still rubbing the stars from her eyes. “Kresnik, they’re never gonna let you walk out of here looking like that!”  
  
“Why not?” Kresnik shrugged, adjusting the weight of his captive on his back. “I’m just a simple groundskeeper, hauling a bag of soil…”  
  
A crimson comet shot out of the trees. It slashed into the top of the sack, nearly taking off Kresnik’s fingers, and dropped the torn bundle at his feet.  
  
“Kresnik!”  
  
The chakram flew over Kresnik’s shoulder and back down the concourse. Aabha caught it neatly in mid-air and hit the ground running, fire in her eyes and at her heels.  
  
Ambrosia emerged from the torn sack, clapping her hands in delight.  
  
“Ha!” she crowed. “It seems your plans have been soiled!”  
  
“What?” Kresnik scoffed.  
  
He lunged for her, but Ambrosia darted out of reach and then zipped overhead. Moments later, Aabha ran up the back of Kresnik’s armor and vaulted past.  
  
“Hey!” Kresnik cried, indignant. “Did you just _climb_ on me?!”  
  
Aabha and Ambrosia took off towards the spaceport, Ambrosia flying at Aabha’s heels. Ambrosia clung to Aabha’s shoulders, gliding weightlessly behind her while Aabha ran. They made quite a sight: Aabha trailing fire and wreathed in multicolored light, Ambrosia’s wings and gown billowing from her shoulders. It was as if Aabha were a superhero, and Ambrosia was her cape.  
  
“Madam Starflower,” Aabha called, glancing over her shoulder, “I’m Agent Aabha Puri of Order asset Sparrow. It’s a pleasure to meet you at last.”  
  
“Charmed,” Ambrosia tittered. “Forgive me, dear, for clinging to your shoulders and merely gliding like this. I admit, it’s rare that I ever do much running on foot.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Aabha said. “Just hang on.”  
  
“I deeply apologize for this, ah, misunderstanding,” Ambrosia continued. “I feel awful, just awful. To think, all this kerfuffle could have been avoided if I had simply taken a video call. But then again, I’m afraid I haven’t quite figured out how to do it on my comm. It’s a new model, you see. I just got it the other week…”  
  
Ambrosia’s chattering faded into the background of Aabha’s thoughts. It was warm, if not entirely welcome at a time like this. Aabha was more focused on her mental map of the Kaleidoscope, the dirt paths of the conservatory transitioning into the russet cobblestones of the central hub, the rhythm of her footsteps, the wind through the trees--  
  
Something clashed against one of Aabha’s chakrams. She angled her wrist and swatted it aside, her eyes tracking movement in the surrounding greenery.  
  
More vines shot out of the undergrowth, tipped with wooden stakes. Aabha parried without breaking stride, each vegetal spear kicking up sparks as it clashed against her blades.  
  
A web of cracks suddenly spread across the cobblestone path. The ground shook, and Aabha stumbled, the path crumbling away as something thundered beneath it.  
  
The road rippled like the surface of a lake, before erupting in a geyser of soil and chipped stone.  
  
Ambrosia coiled her arms around Aabha’s waist and hoisted her up, rising above the calamity below. A huge column of plant matter, bristling with thready roots and coiling vines, emerged from the crater and snapped at their heels with a twisted semblance of jaws. It shrieked and howled, but Ambrosia pulled Aabha up and up into the air, safely out of the creature’s reach.  
  
“Daemon?!” Aabha hissed.  
  
“Not to worry, dear,” Ambrosia reassured. “Just a golem. They can make golems out of anything these days, provided they have the, ah, materials. And if there’s one thing we have an abundance of, it’s plants.”  
  
“I see,” Aabha murmured.  
  
“It’s amazing what a skilled elementalist can cook up, isn’t it?” Ambrosia tittered. “Now, then, as I was saying. I said to him, ‘young man, a three-year service contract seems like far too much hullabaloo for a mere comm frequency…’”  
  
Ambrosia’s no-doubt enthralling anecdote was cut short by a thrumming buzz, followed quickly by a pained shriek. Aabha looked down and saw a criss-crossing array of bright emerald beams, all converging on the golem in its crater. The beast flailed and shrieked under the withering onslaught, weeping black smoke from a dozen smouldering wounds.  
  
Ambrosia yelped in surprise, jerking back from an emerald beam.  
  
On the path below, Ambrosia saw masked footmen in the green-and-bronze livery of the Emerald Knights, bearing shields and forked spears. In stoic silence, they braced their spears on the edges of their shields, charged their shots, and fired.  
  
“Hold on!” Ambrosia cried. She wove around their shots, serving as Aabha’s wings.  
  
The heat of a near-miss flash-dried the sweat on Aabha’s brow. She crossed her chakrams over her chest, the blades gleaming red with her magic. She slapped a lance blast away with one of her chakrams, then a second, a third. One lucky shot came searing up the sky towards her, aimed dead center. Aabha caught it on her crossed blades with a squeal like water on glass, before swiping her blades apart and dissipating the beam into a cloud of emerald fire.  
  
“What are they doing, shooting plasma inside a space station?!” Aabha snarled.  
  
“The Knights’ lances are attuned to the barrier protecting the ship,” Ambrosia explained. “Anything that misses us and hits the domes only strengthens the ship’s shields.”  
  
“What about us?”  
  
“Oh, if they hit us, we’ll get burnt to a crisp quite nicely.”  
  
Aabha rolled her eyes.  
  
“Dive!”  
  
They plunged together back under the cover of the trees, trading one threat for another. The lance blasts ceased, but the vines renewed their attack. With an unspoken command, Aabha’s chakrams flew from her fingers and spun in orbits around the duo, cutting apart incoming vines. Aabha took Ambrosia’s hand and led her through the narrow streets, adobe walls and russet cobblestones flying past…  
  
A shadow flicked across the mouth of the alley. Aabha ran headfirst into a wall of ceramite, catching her across the collar. Her momentum carried her legs forward and she fell onto her back, all the air smashed from her lungs. She clutched her chest, wheezing.  
  
“Agent!” Ambrosia gasped, reaching out. Kresnik caught her in his arm and hoisted her over his shoulder.  
  
“Up you go,” Kresnik grunted. He glanced down and met Aabha’s eyes. “Sorry, kiddo, but a job’s a job. Nothing personal. You understand.”  
  
There was a crash up the alley. Kresnik looked up just in time to see Kit smash Veil into a brick wall with a wind-assisted flying kick.  
  
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” Kit growled. She left Veil in a crumpled heap, his entourage of vines falling inert.  
  
Kit saw Aabha, still reeling from Kresnik’s clothesline, curled up on the ground. She and Lily were at her side in an instant. But while Kit knelt over Aabha, her eyes shadowed with worry, Lily’s eyes were on Kresnik’s armored bulk, disappearing down the alley.  
  
Lily grit her teeth, and took off.    
  
She gained ground on him remarkably fast, vengeance fueling her footsteps. Never mind that she didn’t know what she would do, exactly, once she caught him. She didn’t know if she had anything that could even put a dent in Kresnik’s armor. But he’d hurt Aabha, he’d hurt Kit, and he’d given her one hell of a headache, and for that, he was going to pay, one way or another.  
  
Kresnik stepped out onto the city square, brazenly carrying Ambrosia over his shoulder. She was looking glum, resigned. But at the sight of Lily approaching, Ambrosia’s eyes lit up.  
  
“Kresnik!” Lily snarled.  
  
Kresnik turned in surprise.  
  
A high-caliber round missed Ambrosia by a hair and gouged a hole in the paving stones.  
  
Kresnik fell to his knees and threw Ambrosia under him, snatching Lily’s hand and yanking her underneath his armored bulk.  
  
“Tell your guys to stop shooting!” Lily cried.  
  
“This isn’t us!” Kresnik said. “Our guy wanted her alive!”  
  
There was a second shot. A third. Kresnik grunted as a hard round cut a gouge down one of his pauldrons. Another shot cracked the plate and Lily flinched, a shard of chipped ceramite leaving a red welt down her cheek. Then, silence.  
  
They waited, for one anxious, breathless minute. But then, before they knew it, there were boots on the ground beside them and a blade at Kresnik’s throat.  
  
“Get up,” came a voice.  
  
Kresnik sighed, and grudgingly got up. Filling the square around them were masked footmen of the Emerald Knights, shields up, lances leveled, green energy crackling between the tines of the forked spears.  
  
Lily stood, briefly meeting the imperious gaze of the Knights’ commanding officer-- and, just over her shoulder, a glimpse of a shadow disappearing into the trees.  
  
“I knew you would be trouble,” Morwen said coldly. The tip of her fine silver rapier was aimed right under Kresnik’s chin, but her eyes weren’t on him, or even on Lily. She was glowering at one person, and one person alone.  
  
“Ambrosia Starflower,” Morwen announced, “by the authority of the Emerald Knights, you and your associates are hereby bound by law.”  
  
~*~  
  
“You disappoint me, Agent Puri.”  
  
Valen clicked his tongue and shook his head with a sigh. He paced the length of the room, with Morwen and two masked footmen standing sentinel and Aabha staring sullenly down at the polished wooden table. Valen came to a halt opposite Aabha’s chair, clasping his hands behind his back.  
  
“In case you hadn’t noticed, the Kaleidoscope does not take kindly to strangers even at the best of times,” Valen said. “However, I thought you might have been an exception. I thought you might be able to come here, be about your business, and then be on your merry way. No fuss. No hassle. I see, now, that I was being terribly optimistic.”  
  
Silence. Aabha didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t do anything but stare down at the loops and whorls of the wood before her, her lips pressed into a line.  
  
“Nothing?” Valen wondered. “You have nothing to say for yourself? No excuses? No cries for clemency? Not even a claim that you were acting in self-defense, as if that would somehow undo how many crowns’ worth of property damage you and your associates piled up during your little rampage?”  
  
Again, nothing. Valen sniffed, haughty. He raised a hand and casually studied his fingernails, before glancing up at Aabha. Aabha kept her eyes on the table below.  
  
“Do you think you’re better than all this?” Valen whispered, his sweet tone laced with venom.  
  
Shame settled like a knot in Aabha’s chest. She opened her mouth, as if to speak, then closed it again. Tension kept her mouth shut.  
  
Valen sighed. He scraped his chair back and rose to his feet.  
  
“Defiant to the end, are we?” Valen sniffed. He glanced down at Aabha’s clothes, eyeing them with unmasked contempt. “Yours is a fitting wardrobe, Agent Puri. Now we see your true colors. Indeed, you wear them proudly. One can only hope your fellows will face their impending disgrace with as much dignity and poise.”  
  
~*~  
  
“Man, this is some _shit_ ,” Lily groaned.  
  
“Tell me about it,” Kit muttered. “Man, if I had a hundred platinum for every time I’ve been stuck in a holding cell…”  
  
“You’d have one hundred platinum?”  
  
“Two, actually,” Kit shrugged. “The last time, it was after Aabha and I got into a bar fight with some Syndicate goons and we got thrown in detention by Persephone PDF. But back then, we had Syl to come bail us out.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Lily said. “I’m sure Aabha will think of something.”  
  
In the corner of their holding cell, Aabha sat alone, hugging her knees to her chest. She was certainly lost in thought, but not because she was planning a way out. Lily’s comment stung; not because it was backhanded and Lily was just being snarky, but because she knew Lily _did_ mean it, truly and sincerely, and she knew Kit believed her, too.  
  
Normally, knowing her girls had such faith in her would bloom something warm in Aabha’s chest. But today, that very same confidence was a weight on her shoulders, crushing, suffocating.  
  
_“The mind is an extraordinary thing, but it has its limits,” Soren intones. “Faith, I am afraid, is not always enough.”_ _  
_ _  
_ Aabha blew out a sigh. She leaned back against the fence separating their holding cell from the next door over, chain links reinforced with wooden slats. Null runes etched in the wood came alight at her touch, flashing as if in warning. The Knights knew their usual detainees wouldn’t try to escape through brute force, and this seemingly flimsy fence would stop an onslaught of elemental magic in its tracks.    
  
A shadow loomed overhead, one inadvertently mirroring the shadow cast over Aabha’s mood.  
  
“Hey, kiddo.”  
  
Aabha lifted her head off her knees. Behind her, someone lowered themselves onto the ground with a grunt, and pressed their back against hers.  
  
“Where’s your boss?” Kresnik wondered. “You know. The little guy.”  
  
Gone, Aabha wanted to say. Reassigned. Would have been fired outright if not for Soren’s compromise, and now he and Syl were stuck in semi-retirement teaching Order initiates on Providence for who knew how long.  
  
_And it was my fault,_ Aabha thought bitterly. She swallowed hard, and didn’t say a word.  
  
Kresnik drummed his fingers against his thigh, waiting for a response. Eventually, he huffed out a sigh.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he rumbled.  
  
Aabha blinked. She looked up.  
  
“What?” she rasped.  
  
“I said, I’m sorry,” Kresnik echoed. “Not just about that hit you took earlier, but I guess it makes sense you’re not talkin’ much after gettin’ clotheslined by a guy in full armor. But nah. I’m sorry about what went down on Hypnos. What that creep Cyrus did to you, that was… that was fucked up. And I delivered you and your boss right to him. I’m sorry.”  
  
Aabha blinked. She glanced over her shoulder, not sure what to say.  
  
She was expecting to see the Headhunter Kresnik, notorious mercenary, power-armored thug. And, indeed, even without his armor’s added bulk, Kresnik was a big man. But there was something about him, now. Something in his voice, or in his eyes, that softened his hulking physique and made it less monstrous. Human.  
  
Aabha took a deep breath, and let it out slow.  
  
“...It wasn’t personal, right?” Aabha smiled, but it was a pained smile. “A job is a job.”  
  
“Well, sure,” Kresnik said. “A job is a job. Until it’s a person.”  
  
Aabha nodded, mute. Across the holding cell, in stark contrast to her corner’s somber quiet, Ambrosia was chattering animatedly with Kit and Lily, seemingly without a care in the world. Aabha sighed, and shook her head.  
  
“It doesn’t look like the job _or_ the person is going anywhere at the moment,” Aabha mused bitterly. “Ambrosia’s stuck here. And I put her here.”  
  
“Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I got her stuck here, too,” Kresnik shrugged. “Hell, maybe she’s better off. Out there, there’s somebody shootin’ to kill.”  
  
Aabha frowned. “And you’re sure it wasn’t one of yours?”  
  
“ _Yes_ , I’m sure,” Kresnik grunted. He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Raney takes shots at me all the time, but usually that’s just a figure a’ speech.”  
  
“Usually,” Raney said dryly.  
  
Aabha pursed her lips in thought. “Who was your client, Kresnik?”  
  
“Can’t tell you.”  
  
“Can’t or won’t?”  
  
“Can’t?” Kresnik shrugged again. “Never met the guy face to face. Just gave us the job and a fat stack right in our accounts. Cash up front, no questions asked. Probably so we wouldn’t ask questions like this.”  
  
Aabha nodded. She called across the cell. “Madam Starflower?”  
  
Ambrosia looked up, blinking owlishly behind her glasses. Aabha had caught her in the middle of what was doubtlessly a lengthy and meandering anecdote about a conversation she’d once had over tea.  
  
“Yes, dear?”  
  
“Do you know anyone who would want to kill you?”  
  
“Oh, goodness. I can’t say that I do. Although, I _have_ been told that I make a bread pudding to _die_ for,” Ambrosia said, chortling at her own joke. Kit and Lily exchanged glances, bemused.  
  
“Now, people who want to take me captive, _that’s_ another story,” Ambrosia continued, almost cheerfully. “If I had to guess, I’d pick my father, Lord Arcturus Starflower. He can be a little, ah, overprotective, you see. He might have seen my leaving the Kaleidoscope as me running away from home.”  
  
Aabha cringed.  
  
“Great, another one with daddy issues,” Lily muttered. “Can’t people have dysfunctional moms for a change?”  
  
“Well, there’s Aabha’s mom,” Kit said. She winced. “...We don’t talk about Aabha’s mom.”  
  
“Say what you will about my mother, she’s never hired mercenaries to kidnap me,” Aabha muttered.  
  
“That is, of course, just conjecture,” Ambrosia chirped. “Do you have any other questions? I’d love to help your investigation in any way I can, and, well, this holding cell has just been dreadfully quiet…”  
  
“Aren’t you just a bundle of sunshine?” Kresnik mused.  
  
“I’m just trying to stay positive,” Ambrosia smiled.  
  
Aabha was hardly in the mood to match Ambrosia’s mirth, but she appreciated the effort, nonetheless.  
  
“I do have a question, actually,” she said quietly.  
  
“Go on, dear.”  
  
Aabha stood, gesturing to her clothes in her signature crimson and gold. “Captain Antares told me that I’ve shown my true colors, and that I wear them well. What did he mean by that?”  
  
Ambrosia’s smile vanished. She glanced away, biting her lip.  
  
“I’m sorry, dear,” Ambrosia said. “That was an awful thing for him to say.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Ambrosia blew out a troubled sigh, wringing her hands. “...Well. I’m sure you noticed how colorful our little colony is…”  
  
“Sure we did,” Kit chimed in. “It’s gorgeous.”  
  
Ambrosia winced.  
  
“I can see how you might think so, from the outside looking in,” she said. “But there is an uncomfortable truth beneath all that visual splendor, and that is this: we Fae live in a tiered society. For every color, there is a caste.  
  
“Violet for the aristocracy. Blue for the scholars and learned men. Green for the military. Yellow for crafters and artisans. Orange for merchants. Red for the working class.”  
  
Ambrosia sighed, meeting Aabha’s eyes.  
  
“...I’m sorry, Agent Puri,” Ambrosia murmured. “The captain was calling you the lowest of the low.”  
  
Aabha nodded, mute. With Morgan and Syl half a sector away, and with the team and their client stuck in the mess they were in… Aabha was inclined to agree.  
  
Until she felt the familiar warmth of Kit and Lily standing by her side.  
  
“All that means is there’s nowhere to go but up,” Kit grinned.  
  
“And we’re just getting started,” Lily smiled.  
  
Aabha looped her arms around her girls and held them close, smiling in gratitude.  
  
Ambrosia clasped her hands together and cooed, though her smile had turned bittersweet.  
  
“It pains me to have put your team through such trouble,” Ambrosia said, sheepish. “I’m sorry that you had to see so unflattering a side of my people. Ours is a striated society, everyone in their place, with those above quite literally looking down on those below.”  
  
“What about you?” Aabha wondered. She gestured to Ambrosia’s shimmering violet gown. “Why is a Fae noblewoman talking to outsiders, or tending plants, for that matter?”  
  
“Losing your planet changes a person,” Ambrosia said gently. “What I loved about my conservatory was that it was the one place aboard the Kaleidoscope where the colors could blend freely. You would think, in our extremis, my people would do the same-- but no. We cling stubbornly to the past, and we don’t earn our namesake at all. We’re no kaleidoscope. We are a mosaic. Our colors mingle. But they do not blend.”  
  
“Is that why they wear masks, then?” Kit wondered, nodding to the footmen silently standing sentinel in the hall beyond. “‘Cuz they’re so much better than us outsiders?”  
  
“We all wear masks, dear,” Ambrosia chuckled. “Fae more than most. Each of us is born with the power to shape our appearance as we see fit. Our society is fixated with appearance and decorum. I’ve never much cared for it. But you three… you girls are different. You girls are something special.”  
  
Kit and Lily grinned, and Aabha couldn’t help but smile along with them. A warm moment bloomed between them, one tinged bittersweet by memory. There was something about Ambrosia that reminded Aabha of Yuna, actually.  
  
She was like a mother. Not _her_ mother, but a mother nonetheless.  
  
A contemptuous groan cut the moment short. In the neighboring cell, Veil hauled himself to his feet, glowering at Ambrosia and the girls from his shadowed corner.  
  
“What a load of nonsense,” Veil spat. “You deserve each other. Traitors and trespassers both.”  
  
“What’s _your_ problem?” Raney wondered.  
  
“Hey!” Veil yelled at the footmen standing guard, walking up to the bars. “Open this door! I want to talk to whichever one of you is in charge of this place. You hear me? Let me out of here and let me see your CO!”  
  
“Oh, sure, they’re just gonna let you talk to the boss,” Kresnik drawled, dubious.  
  
“Be quiet,” Veil growled. “I have a better chance of meeting with the captain of this place than any of you outsiders. Besides, I don’t see either of you geniuses coming up with a plan.”  
  
“Relax, man,” Kresnik muttered. “You know the most important thing in bounty hunting? Patience. You’ll never make it in this business if you go jumping the gun.”  
  
“I said be quiet!” Veil snapped. He banged on the bars with his fist. “Hey! You! Come here!”  
  
A masked footman glanced at Veil sidelong, before fixing his gaze straight forward as he was before. Veil snarled.  
  
“Hey!” He called again. “Let me talk to whoever’s in charge. Or you do it, I don’t care! Go tell your boss I want to make a deal!”  
  
The footman smacked his spear against the cell door and set the bars ringing. An instant later, he clapped the base of his spear against the ground and snapped to attention.  
  
Morwen appeared at the end of the hall and paced down the cell block, flanked by a pair of footmen. Unlike the other troopers with their spears, Morwen and her personal units seemed to favor the buckler and rapier, which they wore hooked to their belts. As she passed by Veil’s cell, he decided to try his luck yet again.  
  
“Hey, you!” He called. “I want to--”  
  
“Sit down,” Morwen said without breaking stride. She stopped before the girls’ cell, studying its occupants with an expressionless gaze. Then, with a nod to her subordinates, the cell door swung open.  
  
“Agent Puri. Madam Starflower,” Morwen said. “Please, come with me.”  
  
~*~  
  
“Nothing I’m about to say leaves this room.”  
  
Morwen peeked out through the blinds of the interrogation room door, before turning towards the table. Aabha and Ambrosia were sitting, flanked by Morwen’s footmen, though their hands were unbound. As Morwen took a seat opposite, her stony expression softened, if only a fraction.  
  
“On paper, Madam Starflower, you are being held here under suspicion of treason,” Morwen said. “In practice, however, you are here under protective custody.”  
  
“Oh!” Ambrosia’s eyes lit up. “Thank goodness! And here I thought you’d turned on me, Morwen!”  
  
“You know each other?” Aabha asked.  
  
“Of course!” Ambrosia beamed. “This is hardly my first run-in with the Knights, Agent Puri. There are always little mischief-makers in my conservatory, you see. Disturbing the plants, leaving graffiti on tree trunks, sneaking into the woods for a bit of lovemaking, you know. I’ve come to know Morwen quite well over the years of reporting such incidents. We've become fast friends!”  
  
“‘Friends’ might be a little much,” Morwen said dryly. “But the point stands. Ambrosia, I trust you enough to know you aren’t responsible for your own kidnapping or the attempt upon your life. On my honor as a knight, you have my protection.”  
  
Morwen’s eyes flicked over to Aabha, and her expression grew cold.  
  
“You, however, I do not trust,” Morwen said. “Exactly what kind of trouble have you brought aboard our ship, Agent Puri?”  
  
“I cannot speak for the bounty hunters attempting to kidnap Madam Starflower, nor the third party making an attempt on her life,” Aabha said levelly. “All I can answer for are myself and my team.”  
  
“How many of your team are aboard the Kaleidoscope?”  
  
“Three, including myself.”  
  
“And how many of your team are still aboard the Sparrow?”  
  
“Seven,” Aabha said. “And I see where this is going, but ser, you would know if any of them tried to come after us. They’d have to pass through the security checkpoint at the docks and they wouldn’t be cleared to bring in any firearms. You couldn’t miss them.”  
  
“Perhaps,” Morwen said. “Agent Puri, we examined the shot fired into the bounty hunter Kresnik’s armor-- the one intended for Ambrosia. The round matches the type of round fired from a human-made bolt action rifle-- the sort of rifle that went missing from our evidence stores just twenty minutes after the Sparrow was cleared to dock, along with a number of other confiscated, contraband weapons. So I’m going to ask you again: how many more of you are on board the Kaleidoscope?”  
  
“No one,” Aabha said, adamant. “It’s just me, Kit, and Lily. We didn’t bring any firearms onto the ship, and we certainly didn’t break into the garrison and take yours.”  
  
“Can you prove that, Agent Puri?” Morwen asked.  
  
“You have to have surveillance cameras,” Aabha said. “Look it up. My team was still on our way to Ambrosia’s conservatory, and the rest of my team never left the Sparrow. You can see it.”  
  
“Appearances can be deceiving, Agent Puri,” Morwen said.  
  
“Oh, don’t give her that, Morwen!” Ambrosia said, throwing her hands up. “This is absurd! You say that appearances are deceiving, but if anything, _we’re_ the ones who haven’t been telling the whole truth.”  
  
Ambrosia clapped a hand on her Aabha’s shoulder and patted her on the back.  
  
“I trusted Agent Puri to get me safely off this station. Along the way, she and her girls have gone on a merry chase through my gardens, fended off bounty hunters, and endured every indignity our mistrust and misunderstanding has put her through. I can tell you, with certainty, that my life is safe in her hands. But if that isn’t enough to convince you…”  
  
Ambrosia turned to Aabha, meeting her eyes.  
  
“Agent Puri. I deeply apologize for everything my people have put you through. We don’t trust easily. Losing your planet can do that to a person. We obsess over etiquette, we wear masks and speak half-truths with smiles on our faces. But not anymore.”  
  
Ambrosia passed a hand over her face, murmuring an incantation. Her features shifted and blurred, like heat haze, before her glamour vanished. Ambrosia’s illusion of auburn hair and rosy cheeks melted away, leaving her true visage beneath.  
  
Her scalp was hidden beneath a shivering mane of auburn leaves that spilled down the back of her gown. A pair of thin, pointed antlers rose from her brow and curled forward like antennae, and her eyes, though dark at first glance, caught the light in myriad glittering points, shimmering green, blue, and violet like the eyes of a dragonfly.  
  
“Madam Starflower?” Aabha wondered.  
  
“Do not be afraid,” Ambrosia said, her voice echoed by an insectile buzzing. She offered Aabha her hand, and Aabha shook it, marveling at the smooth sheen of Ambrosia’s chitinous exterior. It was like she was wearing armor, but the segmented plates of her fingers were thinner and more supple than even the most skintight exosuit. The sensation was… strange. But not unwelcome.  
  
The sight of Ambrosia dropping her glamour-- around an outsider, no less-- left Morwen speechless. She stared at Ambrosia, shaken, silently working her jaw. Ambrosia saw the look on her face, and smiled a gentle smile.  
  
“You see, Morwen?” Ambrosia said. “I have nothing to hide, and neither does little Aabha. I contacted her team of my own will, to secure my transport off of the Kaleidoscope. She was here today to answer my call. Everything else was just sheer, dumb luck.”  
  
_Or fate, if you’re feeling dramatic._ Morgan’s words from half a year ago echoed in Aabha’s head. She stood up, and cleared her throat.  
  
“Ser Hest,” Aabha began, “I take full responsibility for the trouble we’ve caused you and your station. But my team has a mission to safely deliver Madam Starflower into the custody of Order Intelligence, and I intend to see it through. If you see fit to release her into our custody, then you have my word: my team and I will keep her safe. And if saving her life comes at the cost of some property damage, then by all means, send us the bill.”  
  
Morwen mulled this over for a long moment, her chin leaning on her fist. Eventually, she took a deep breath, and sighed. She nodded to one of her subordinates, and at her silent command, the footman stepped outside.  
  
“...You are an interesting young woman, Agent Puri,” Morwen said, at length.  
  
Aabha smiled. “I’m just getting started.”  
  
“Let us suppose that you are, indeed, who you say you are,” Morwen ventured. “And let us also suppose that the bounty hunter, Kresnik, is who he says _he_ is, and that his team intended to capture Ambrosia alive. There’s still the matter of the shooter, or shooters, who were skilled enough to have stolen the contraband weapons from our evidence lock-up.”  
  
“With respect, Ser Hest,” Aabha began, “I think you may be a little too preoccupied as to the threat coming from outside your walls.”  
  
Morwen’s eyes flashed. “What are you saying?”  
  
“I’m saying that any one of the knights within this garrison has access to your evidence room,” Aabha said. “My only question is: which one of you wants Ambrosia dead?”  
  
Morwen remained silent for a long moment. The masked footman returned, bearing a small metal lockbox whose surface shimmered with protective wards. Morwen blew out a heavy sigh, reluctantly meeting Aabha’s eyes.  
  
“...Perhaps we began on the wrong foot, Agent Puri,” Morwen said, though she had to grit her teeth in order to admit it. She gestured to the lockbox her subordinate was carrying. “These are for you. Maybe there’s something to be gained from our… cooperation.”  
  
She nodded the footman forward. He approached Aabha and Ambrosia, the lockbox held in front of his chest.  
  
The window shattered. The footman stumbled forward and Ambrosia caught him, only to recoil at the sight of the ragged hole in his stomach-- and the high caliber round embedded in the lockbox at exactly her eye level.  
  
Aabha yanked Ambrosia down just as a second shot banged overhead. Aabha dove out of her chair, taking Ambrosia down with her.  
  
Another shot. Morwen barked an order. Aabha and Ambrosia hit the ground.  
  
Then, all hell broke loose.  
  
~*~  
  
“Psst. Hey.”  
  
Kit glanced up. She and Lily were laying on the foam pad on their cell floor, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for Aabha to get back. Kit’s head was on Lily’s stomach. Even now, they couldn’t resist a good cuddle.  
  
“What’s up?” Kit wondered.  
  
“You can shapeshift, right?” Lily asked. “What if you went into fox form and squeezed out through the bars?”  
  
“How would I get you out?”  
  
“Find a dude with keys, steal them, try not to kill the guy if you don’t have to, maybe?”  
  
Kit shrugged. “Maybe if it wouldn’t cause an international incident. Order operatives breaking out of a foreign prison ain’t a good look. I don’t think Aabha would want us getting in any more trouble.”  
  
“I dunno. We’re already locked up,” Lily mused. “I don’t see how it could get any worse.”  
  
A furious staccato of gunfire erupted above them. Kit and Lily sprang apart, scrambling to their feet.  
  
“I had to say something, didn’t I?” Lily groaned. “Oh, fuck me.”  
  
“Like right now?” Kit drawled.  
  
The sounds of a roaring firefight sent masked footmen rushing to respond. But as one of the troopers ran past the bounty hunters’ cell, he suddenly seized and stopped in his tracks. He swiveled slowly towards the trio, his eyes shining with a tell-tale violet glow.  
  
_“Let me out,”_ Veil commanded.  
  
The enthralled guard produced a keyring with sluggish fingers. The key clunked in the lock, and the cell door swung open. Moments later, the guard was sprawled facedown on the cell floor, Raney was trying out her new spear, and Kresnik was giving the bars a little shake to make sure they had the guard locked tight.  
  
“What the hell did you do? Hypnotize him?” Raney wondered.  
  
“Something like that,” Veil scoffed.  
  
“Alright,” Kresnik grunted. “I say the next step is finding out where they put our suits.”  
  
“Agreed,” Raney said.  
  
“Do what you like,” Veil muttered, scarcely glancing their way. “I have a job to finish.”  
  
Veil took off, without so much as a goodbye.  
  
“Asshole,” Raney huffed, indignant.  
  
She turned to Kresnik. Her eyes met his, flitted down to the neighboring cell, and then back to his eyes again. Kresnik nodded.  
  
“I’m not sure how I feel about this,” Kit grumbled, as Kresnik swung the cell door open.  
  
“Me either,” Raney shrugged.  
  
“We can get all touchy-feely once we get outta this place,” Kresnik said. He pointed to the ceiling, where the sounds of a distant firefight continued unabated. “Now, I dunno about you, but I don’t wanna show up to that mess in just my pajamas. We gotta find out where they put our gear. Any ideas?”  
  
Lily wasn’t really paying attention. She was preoccupied with a sound-- ever since she stepped out of the holding cell, there was a strange, muffled buzzing in her ear, that almost sounded like…  
  
_\--away team, come in. Sparrow to away team, do you copy?_  
  
“Crane?!” Lily blurted out. Kresnik and Raney blinked at her, puzzled. She cleared her throat, and tried thinking to her instead.  
  
_Crane, is that you?_ Lily sent.  
  
_Lily? Lily, are you alright?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Crane!_ Lily smiled. _I’m fine, Kit’s here with me, but they took Aabha and Ambrosia somewhere and now shit’s getting real. They took our badges and our comms, too._  
  
_I know_ , Crane said. It was like she was speaking underwater. _I’ve been trying to reach you telepathically, but you’re deep underground and the walls are warded. I don’t know how long I can maintain this link. Quickly: what do you need from me?_ _  
_ _  
_ _Directions_ , Lily sent. _We need to know where they put our stuff, we need to link up with Aabha and Ambrosia, and after that we need a way out. Did you say we were underground?_ _  
_ _  
_ _I have Lila bringing up a map of the Kaleidoscope Garrison right now. We’ll talk you through it,_ Crane replied. _And yes, Lily. The detention block was drilled into the bedrock of the asteroid the Kaleidoscope is sitting on. There’s no escaping it laterally. There’s--_ _  
_ _  
_ “Nowhere to go but up,” Lily breathed, like a prayer. “Alright, guys! Follow me!”  
  
~*~  
  
Aabha threw Ambrosia down and upended the interrogation room table, hard rounds cracking off of every surface around them. A storm of gunfire tore through the walls and drew punctured metal constellations in the steel tabletop. Morwen had her rapier drawn and her buckler raised, a barrier of solidified light shimmering into place around the central hub and making the plate-sized shield triple in diameter. Morwen’s subordinate activated their shield and tossed it over to Aabha and Ambrosia.  
  
Aabha caught it, gratefully. Less than a second later, a wild burst of gunfire perforated the footman and he fell without a sound.  
  
But the Knights were beginning to fight back. While their shadowy assailants hosed gunfire through the garrison with wild abandon, there was a thunderclap-- the sound of a dozen energized lances stamping against the floorboards, and whining as they built up a charge.  
  
With a rushing roar, twelve simultaneous lance blasts obliterated the hallway outside Morwen’s door. Beams of emerald fire rocketed across the room, blasting through hooded assassins and everything they thought they could hide behind. There was a brief moment of stunned quiet in the aftermath of the first volley; but soon, the assassins renewed their attack, their frenzied gunfire sending footmen scrambling for cover of their own.  
  
Aabha blinked, impressed, at the huge wave of emerald energy that shot past the interrogation room window and left the opposite wall blackened and smoking. She glanced at Ambrosia beside her.  
  
“I’m glad they’re on our side!” Ambrosia tittered.  
  
Aabha turned as Morwen slid into cover beside her.  
  
“Do you still think _I_ was the one who invited this kill team?” Aabha asked, indignant.  
  
“My theory’s being revised,” Morwen said flatly. She clicked the activator stud on the hilt of her rapier, setting it alight with a leaf-green glow. With a sharp cry, she thrust her sword forward and a needle-thin beam of emerald light flew from the blade, spearing a hooded trigger man right through his throat.  
  
A trio of shots smacked into her shield and forced her back down into cover. She dropped down beside Aabha with a frustrated sigh, her shield cracked and sparking. Aabha stared at her, her breath hitching in her throat.  
  
_“Remember, Aabha,” Syl lectured. “Energy shields for energy weapons. Hard armor for hard rounds.”_  
  
“What are you looking at?” Morwen asked.  
  
“What? Nothing,” Aabha said.  
  
Gunfire stitched a line across the wall at head height, kicking up puffs of plaster and sending debris crumbling down. Ambrosia, for all her mirth, couldn’t help crying out in alarm as debris spattered against her borrowed shield. Morwen frowned, and met Aabha’s eyes.  
  
“You have to get her out.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“If the Garrison has been compromised, nowhere on this station is safe,” Morwen said. She found the fallen lockbox and dragged it closer, examining the warded lock. She glanced meaningfully between Aabha and Ambrosia. “Take her. Get her on your ship and get away from here. Understand?”  
  
Aabha blinked. “...But I--”  
  
“Come on! Are you an Agent or not?” Morwen demanded.  
  
“I am! I just… can’t do this alone.”  
  
Morwen’s expression softened. She blew out a breath.  
  
“No one can,” she said, with surprising tenderness.  
  
The lockbox clicked open beneath her. She lifted out its contents and held them out to Aabha, glinting in the light-- an Order-issue commlink, and a badge, shiny and new.  
  
Aabha took her badge in her hands. She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.  
  
Brilliant saffron light wrapped itself around Aabha’s shoulders like a quilt of molten gold. She emerged from the shining teleport flare in her gleaming armor and crimson sari, the silver sunbursts of her chakrams ready at her hips. Aabha slipped her comm into her ear and keyed it on.  
  
“Firefly to all signs, Firefly to all signs, can anyone hear me?”  
  
_“Holy shit, Aabha, is that you?”_  
  
A warm smile spread across Aabha’s lips.  
  
“Hey, Lila. How are you liking your first shift in the control room?”  
  
_“Don’t get me started,”_ Lila laughed. _“Where are you?”_  
  
“We’re in the upper offices. We have armed mercs coming out of the woodwork and we need a way out. Have you heard from Kit and Lily?”  
  
_“Crane has a psychic link with them. They’re in lower evidence lock-up, working their way up through the sublevels.”_  
  
“We need to get to ground level,” Morwen chimed in. “If we can make it to the garage you can all take a patrol skimmer back to the spacedock.”  
  
Aabha nodded. She keyed in her earpiece.  
  
“Lila, tell Kit and Lily to make their way to the ground floor, and have the Captain prep the Sparrow for launch,” Aabha said. “We’re coming to you.”  
  
Aabha sent a steel chair smashing through the one-way mirror looking into the interrogation room. Aabha brushed the largest pieces of glass off the sill with a gauntleted hand, before cutting a length of her sari and laying the cloth across the broken glass. She hooked her arms around Ambrosia’s waist and rolled them both over the chest-high sill. They landed in a crouch in the observation room, putting another wall between them and the torrent of gunfire.  
  
Morwen landed beside them, flicking her rapier and sending another lash of emerald fire flashing down the hall. The firefight continued, unabated.  
  
“They’re coming up through the atrium,” Morwen muttered, scornful.  
  
The Emerald Knights’ Garrison aboard the Kaleidoscope was a tiered structure built around a large central atrium that allowed the flying knights quick and easy access to any department. Unfortunately, they weren’t the only ones with wings.  
  
“We need another way out,” Aabha said.  
  
“Follow me,” Morwen commanded.  
  
Morwen led them at a crouching shuffle across the rows and rows of desks and computer terminals, Aabha shielding Ambrosia with her armored form every step of the way. Ambrosia kept her head down and her borrowed shield up, flinching at every stray round that smacked into the energized barrier. Hard rounds whizzed overhead, punching through computer monitors and rolling chairs, sending puffs of foam padding drifting through the air.  
  
Through the gunsmoke and floating debris, Aabha got her first good look at the trigger men-- Fae with neon red grasshopper wings, their eyes glinting violet in the darkness of their hoods.  
  
A tight burst of gunfire smacked a footman onto his back. He sat up, clutched his forked spear, and annihilated a mercenary in a flash of emerald light. An instant later, the footman fell for good, his armor shredded by automatic fire.  
  
Ambrosia cringed as pieces of the fallen footman’s armor pinged off her shield. The knights’ lance blasts were patient, methodical, and they made every shot count-- but they were icicles fighting a flood. It was quantity versus quality out here, and quantity was winning.  
  
There was a whoosh of flame beside her, and Aabha hurled her chakrams over the desk they were crouched behind. Morwen braced her sword on a corner of her shield and fired another emerald beam down the concourse. A hooded mercenary had his pelvis just vanish underneath him, and he fell forward onto his face. Two other mercs ducked under Aabha’s chakrams, only for them to ricochet off the balcony rail behind them and cut them down on their way back.  
  
Aabha flicked her wrists, and her chakrams returned obediently to her hands. She called out to Morwen, fighting to be heard above the relentless gunfire.  
  
“Where to?” Aabha cried.  
  
“Stairwell,” Morwen called, searing beams flashing from her sword. “That door!”  
  
Keeping her head down, Aabha inched her way towards a door at the far end of the bullpen. She shoved down on the push-bar, but it creaked in its frame and barely budged.  
  
“They must not use it often,” Ambrosia mused.  
  
“Figures,” Aabha groaned. “Why would they? Everyone can fly.”  
  
Aabha kicked the door once, twice. On the third kick, it finally gave way, revealing a dusty stairwell-- and a mercenary, his gun smacked out of his hands by the swinging door.  
  
Aabha punched a chakram into his throat and kicked him over the rail. He fell past his fellow mercenaries coming up the stairs, who all snapped their aim up to Aabha’s door.  
  
Aabha threw her chakrams and then somersaulted over the rail. As she dove for the ground floor, her chakrams followed in her wake. They flew down the steps, ricocheting around every bend in the stairs, trailing fire like comets before flying back to Aabha’s hands. She snatched the ring blades out of the air with a final somersault, heard wings above her, and felt hands under her arms. Aabha pivoted out of her headlong dive, swung her legs forward and stuck the landing. Above her, a dozen hooded mercenaries fell face-first onto the steps, glowing gouges burned through their chests.  
  
Aabha stood, blowing out a breath. Behind her, Ambrosia clapped her hands merrily.  
  
“Agent Puri, that was quite a jump!” she beamed.  
  
“Thanks for catching me,” Aabha grinned.  
  
“This isn’t over yet,” Morwen chided, and kicked open the door.  
  
The door flew open with a bang. A squad of footmen jumped at the sound and whirled around, their lances ready to fire.  
  
“Shoulder arms!” Morwen barked.  
  
They snapped to attention, their lances held upright against their shoulders.  
  
“You four, with me,” Morwen snapped.  
  
The footmen fell in step around them, a makeshift guard detail. They emerged into a spacious concrete parking garage, filled with rows and rows of security vehicles-- everything from armored transports on thick, heavy treads, to lightweight one-man patrol speeders. Rows of vehicles sat at rest or stood clamped to their charging stations. Lumen strips set in the ceiling cast the garage in an eerie, artificial light, long shadows creeping up the walls.  
  
Shots smacked into a nearby hovercraft. Aabha pulled Ambrosia down behind a heavy, concrete-sided charging station, before summoning her chakrams to her hands and sending them flying across the garage. Morwen and her guards were already returning fire, a slow, rhythmic volley of searing emerald light.  
  
Shots stitched their way across the side of an armored car and struck one of the footmen across the face. Another fell, his armor cracked and smouldering.  
  
There was something strange going on here, Aabha thought. There was something about this firefight that seemed… off, somehow, and she finally realized what it was: there was no screaming. Morwen seemed to be the only one actually yelling orders. Everyone else was completely silent-- footman and mercenary alike, fighting and falling without making a sound.  
  
A volley of emerald lance blasts slammed into the group of mercenaries from the side. Further up the garage, a knight and his footmen were firing in support, taking the pressure off of Aabha’s group. Grateful, Morwen pushed the group ahead-- but Ambrosia paused, frowning, studying the body of one of the fallen footmen. As he’d hit the ground, his hood had fallen back, exposing what Aabha had thought was a mask. But…  
  
“It’s not a mask,” Ambrosia murmured. “It’s his face.”  
  
“They’re golems,” Morwen said with a grimace. “Nobody wants to admit it, but we’re seriously understaffed. There’s too few of us living Fae to risk losing any in combat, so what few we have are given command positions. The majority of grunt work is handled by drones.”  
  
“These golems,” Aabha pressed. “What are they made of?”  
  
Morwen blinked. “Wood.”  
  
Up ahead, Kresnik burst through a set of double doors, with Raney, Kit, and Lily in tow. The knight and his men snapped their aim towards them, lances thrumming with power.  
  
“Stand down!” Morwen called.  
  
“Ser Hest?” the knight wondered, lowering his spear.  
  
A footman smashed him off his feet with a stunning backhand, before leveling its own spear and firing. Morwen took the blast on her shield, the barrier squealing like wet glass-- but the angle wasn’t perfect, and a portion of the refracted beam shrieked past her guard and gouged a searing line down her thigh plate.  
  
Aabha felt sorcery in the air, whirled around and beheaded a possessed footman with a swipe of her ring blades. The second footman lunged, a tell-tale violet glow in his eyes. His spear punched into Ambrosia’s shield, and she cried out in alarm, her shield unsteady on her arm. The forked blade opened up, and a beam began to charge…  
  
Aabha slapped the spear upwards, sending the lance blast scorching a line into the roof. Aabha spun, slashing the footman’s throat and kicking him away in one smooth motion.  
  
“Kit! Lily!” Aabha cried.  
  
She flicked her wrist, sending something flying through the air. Kit caught them on a conjured wind, and guided their confiscated badges to her and Lily’s waiting hands.  
  
A shining teleport flare engulfed the duo in wheat-gold and frost-blue. Kit emerged from the glow and split a footman down the middle with one stroke of her heat blade. Lily blasted a footman with cryo rounds at point-blank range, flipped her shotgun in the air, caught the barrel with both hands, and smashed the snap-frozen corpse to powder with her best home-run swing.  
  
With a lull in the shooting, Kit and Lily raced down the concourse and leapt into Aabha’s arms. Aabha gasped in relief, holding them close. The moment didn’t last long.  
  
“Our security golems have been compromised,” Morwen said through gritted teeth. “They’re being controlled by someone. A plant mage.”  
  
“Son of a bitch,” Kresnik said. “Remember who did some magic shit to a guard to get us out of our cell? It’s Veil. _He’s_ behind all this.”  
  
“So those mercs shooting at us are golems he’s controlling, too?” Lily wondered.  
  
“They’re here for her,” Raney said, nodding to Ambrosia. “Someone’s going through a hell of a lot of trouble to get her, all while making this look like something it isn’t.”  
  
Ambrosia blinked. She stared down at the floor, wringing her hands.  
  
“What a nightmare…” she murmured. Her eyes flitted from Morwen’s scorched thigh plate up to her eyes. “And I brought it here. I’m so sorry.”  
  
Morwen just sighed, and shook her head. She grabbed the chassis of an open-topped patrol skimmer, and pulled herself to her feet. She pulled out her badge, and pressed it to a scanner on the pilot’s console.  
  
The skimmer’s drive lit with a whir, its anti-gravity halo thrumming with electric blue light. The team clambered aboard.  
  
“Lily, take the wheel,” Kit said.  
  
“Why me?”  
  
“What, do you want Aabha to drive?”  
  
“Don’t you start,” Aabha rolled her eyes. She took Ambrosia’s hand and helped her into the skimmer, before turning to help the next person aboard.  
  
Morwen met her eyes. She looked down at Aabha’s offered hand. Slowly, she took it. She didn’t pull herself aboard the skimmer. She stood tall, despite her wounded leg, and gave Aabha a firm handshake.  
  
“Good luck, Agent Puri,” Morwen said. “You’re on your way.”  
  
Morwen threw a lever on the charging station. With a lurch, the skimmer’s docking clamps disengaged and it began floating out into the open lane.  
  
Doors banged open across the way. Mercenaries and masked footmen, both with violet shining in their eyes, began spilling into the garage like ants.  
  
“We’ve got incoming!” Raney called over her shoulder.  
  
“Kresnik, come on!” Lily called.  
  
“Yeah, I’m not fitting in that,” Kresnik said lightly.  
  
He punched a fist into his armored palm, facing down the onrushing horde.  
  
“Go!” Kresnik barked. “We’ll cover you!”  
  
The girls exchanged glances. Lily hit the engine. Their skimmer pulsed with blue light, before shooting down the garage, making a beeline for the glimmer of artificial sunlight beyond the dim, shadowed concrete.  
  
A hooded mercenary made to cut off their escape, unfolding a tripod and mounting a heavy autocannon onto it.  
  
Kresnik punched the mercenary into an armored car hard enough to leave a dent. He kicked the tripod out from under the heavy weapon and took it for himself. With his armored bulk, Kresnik hefted an autocannon like an ordinary man might wield a rifle. He engaged the recoil dampeners in the arms of his suit, braced his aim, and started hosing fire down the garage, hard rounds pinging off his armor like hail.  
  
A possessed footman leveled his spear at Kresnik, charging an anti-armor lance blast.  
  
Raney darted under the footman’s guard and got her hands on his spear. She turned, curling her back towards the man and threw him over her shoulder, slamming him onto the pavement and jarring the spear from his grasp. Raney spun the spear in her hand, stabbed the footman in the throat, and kept moving.  
  
“That spear’s not your style,” Kresnik mused over the roar of his heavy weapon.  
  
“You’re right. It’s Ellie’s,” Raney shrugged.  
  
She stamped the spear haft against the ground, collapsing the haft until it was the length of a rifle, before raising it to her shoulder, the forked blade becoming a makeshift sight.  
  
“Now _this_ ,” Raney said, taking aim. “ _This_ is more my speed.”  
  
~*~  
  
_“Aabha, we’re ready to take off. Where are you?”_  
  
“We’re on our way!” Aabha yelled over the wind whipping past.  
  
The skimmer shot like a bullet across the Kaleidoscope’s rust-red cobblestone streets. All the myriad colors of the colony ship blurred together as they zipped past, their sights set on the arch of the spaceport and the sterile white of the Sparrow’s docking terminal beyond.  
  
But they weren’t out of the woods yet. Even above the sound of the skimmer’s warbling anti-gravity drive and the rushing wind, they could hear it-- the trembling, sending a spiderweb of cracks racing along the paving stones beneath their feet.  
  
The road ahead exploded into a massive plume of dirt and debris. Lily threw the skimmer into a tight turn, just missing the beast emerging from underground-- Veil’s serpentine colossus of animated plant matter.  
  
Without missing a beat, Aabha and Kit unleashed hell-- Aabha’s flames and Kit’s summoned winds joining together into a spiraling firestorm that slammed into the beast. But the golem would not be deterred-- it opened its misshapen jaws and roared, exposing a gullet full of pulsating vines and rows upon rows of sharpened briars entwined like a lamprey’s teeth. The beast lunged for them, lightning-fast for a creature its size--  
  
\--when an emerald-tailed comet smashed it aside.  
  
Morwen’s wings shone a frosty green at her back, and she dove like a comet trailing emerald flame. She bellowed a war cry and plunged her rapier into the beast, thumbing the activator stud in her sword’s grip.  
  
The beast shrieked as burning emerald light skewered its insides, shearing through fleshy plant stems and wood pulp and setting its innards alight. Morwen stabbed it, again, and again, the shining green lance beam carving a burning trail wherever it went. The beast flailed and thrashed, shrieking as gouts of emerald fire leapt from its mouth and from its myriad wounds.  
  
The team turned towards the road ahead, and saw the colors of the Kaleidoscope slowly melt away. They zipped under the arch of the spaceport, trading brilliant color for sterile white, and raced down the concourse to the Sparrow’s docking terminal.  
  
They were close, now. So close.  
  
But a man was waiting for them at the dock, a forked spear in his hands.  
  
“It’s treason, then,” Valen said, and fired.  
  
Lily threw the skimmer into a turn-- too slow. The lance blast struck the skimmer in its exposed underbelly and scorched a trail down its chassis, cutting its anti-gravity halo in two.  
  
“Grab on!” Ambrosia cried, gathering the girls in her arms.  
  
Ambrosia summoned her wings to her back, flashing green, violet, and blue. She pulled Aabha, Kit, and Lily clear of the gutted skimmer as it spun out of control, smashing into the security checkpoint. Ambrosia’s wings strained at the weight, however, and soon she was forced to drop them. She and the girls fell to the ground in a crumpled, dazed heap, as Captain Valen Antares of the Emerald Knights strode up with a sickening smile.  
  
“Ah, my Lady Starflower,” he said. “I would have liked to have handled this quietly. But you seem determined to leave us.”  
  
Valen stepped forward, gilded and gleaming in the green and gold armor the Emerald Knights. Veil stepped out of his shadow, hooded and robed, but with eyes that shone with violet light.  
  
Aabha pulled herself upright, groggy from the crash. She hissed, anger sharpening her senses.  
  
“You two,” she seethed. “You were in this together.”  
  
“Something like that,” Veil said.  
  
“The security golems, the ‘hitmen’,” Valen began, air quotes and all. “Those were my doing. Those mindless peons at the Garrison already swear fealty to me-- they should be honored to be my puppets. But Veil here… he is so much more than a puppet. He’s one of my finest creations. So much smarter, so much stronger, so much deadlier than a golem. He is my right hand man.”  
  
Black smoke rose from Veil’s form. He dissolved into inky blackness, melting into a murky pool of sludge-- and then Valen stepped forward, and his form snapped back into place against Valen’s feet.  
  
Valen smiled. “My shadow, if you would.”  
  
Toxic violet light shone from Valen’s eyes, his mouth, his fingertips. Blackened vines tipped with wooden stakes burst out of his back and punched into the ground, lifting him up like spider legs. He loomed above Ambrosia, dark magic billowing from his form.  
  
“There are so few of us left,” Valen said, his voice echoed by an otherworldly power. “After the Fall. The Tuatha De are rare and they are precious. Yet we lose more, each and every day, to illness, to violence… and to the Enemy. Through Veil’s eyes, and through the eyes of my puppets, I have worked to safeguard the purity of our people. I would have wanted to spare the life of a pureblooded daughter of Danu. But you show your true face to outsiders, conspire with them, consort with them! I see now that it is too late to save--”  
  
There was a bang. Valen blinked, touching his chest, staring in wonder at his bloodied fingers.    
  
A second shot hit him in the face and pitched him backwards, his vines flailing as he crumpled to the ground. The team watched the abrupt, anticlimactic end to Valen’s speech, and blinked up at their savior.  
  
Crane lowered her pistol, and raised an eyebrow.  
  
“...I’m sorry, did you want me to let him finish?”  
  
Crane helped the girls to their feet and ushered them into the boarding tube, leaving Valen’s form in the dirt. They hurried along the rickety walkway, making their way to the Sparrow’s boarding hatch. They were almost there--  
  
Ambrosia cried out, her legs yanked out from under her.  
  
Valen loomed behind her, his vines around her ankles, dragging her back. Blood and gore dribbled from an empty eye socket, but violet fire burned in the other, along with a wicked sigil scorched into his cheek.  
  
Aabha gasped and looked away, her heart racing.  
  
The Mark of Malice.  
  
“Dogma,” Aabha breathed.  
  
_“If we can’t have her,”_ Valen seethed, _“no one can.”_  
  
Wooden spears shot forward. They clashed against Aabha’s chakrams, fire in her eyes.  
  
“She doesn’t belong to you, or anyone,” Aabha said, adamant.  
  
_“She belongs to us! She belongs to her people!”_ Valen roared. _“She’s not like you!”_  
  
Aabha stood, ready to defend Ambrosia with her life. But Ambrosia reached out, and placed a gentle hand on Aabha’s, lowering her chakrams. Their eyes met, exchanging a host of feeling in a single glance. She turned, gazing past the wicked mark on Valen’s cheek to his single, manic eye.  
  
“You’re right. I’m not like them.”  
  
Ambrosia smiled.  
  
“I’m one of a kind.”  
  
Ambrosia pitched one of Aabha’s chakrams right at Valen’s face. He snarled, reflexively deflecting the ring blade with a swipe of his vines. The burning ring blade sailed over his shoulder--  
  
\--and punched a hole in the pressurized tube.  
  
Explosive decompression shredded the boarding tube from the inside out, hurling Valen away down the concourse. Aabha clung to the grilled metal walkway, hooking her fingers in the mesh, as the boarding tube came apart around her. Ambrosia wrapped her arms around her waist, and summoned her wings to her back. Ambrosia’s wings buzzed, fighting through the roaring wind. Together, hand over hand, wingbeat by wingbeat, Aabha and Ambrosia fought their way through the pressure wave.  
  
There was a sickening metal lurch, and the walkway sheared away from its moorings-- but Kit and Lily each grabbed one of Aabha’s hands and heaved them both into the Sparrow’s open hatch. They fell in a heap onto the Sparrow’s deck.  
  
Crane slammed the hatch shut behind them.  
  
“Robyn, go!” Crane cried.  
  
Robyn threw a lever on her console. The Sparrow lit its drives and jumped into hyperspace, leaving the collapsing boarding tube in its wake.  
  
~*~  
  
As soon as the boarding tube had depressurized, emergency shutters slammed shut in the Kaleidoscope’s hatchway. But moments after the boarding tube collapsed and the Sparrow sped away, wooden spears punched into the metal shutters and pried them apart.  
  
Valen squeezed his way through the gap. He emerged in the security checkpoint, gasping, frost coating his limbs. The shutters slid shut behind him and crushed his vines. He was stuck, tethered to the hatch, a ruined and pathetic husk of a man.  
  
Then two huge gauntleted hands came to rest on his shoulders.  
  
“You know, when a lady says ‘no’, she means it,” Kresnik growled.  
  
Kresnik lifted up Valen’s thin frame and wrenched him free of the hatch, leaving his vines crushed and torn between the emergency shutters. He punched him in the face, sending him spinning from the torque.  
  
Raney caught him in her cables, spinning Valen around until he was wrapped tight. She clicked the releases on her gauntlets and kicked him flat onto his back.  
  
Unnoticed, the mark of Dogma melted from his cheek. It dripped onto the deck, sizzled, and was gone.  
  
“You’re coming with us, asshole,” Raney muttered. “You owe us some answers. And a whole lot of money.”  
  
“No.”  
  
Morwen flitted over, her wings glinting in the docking bay’s bright, artificial light. She landed awkwardly, stumbling over her wounded leg. But she kept her head high, nonetheless.  
  
“He belongs to us,” Morwen said, bracing herself on her sheathed rapier as a makeshift cane. Her lips curled with distaste. “He belongs with his people.”  
  
“Now wait just a minute,” Kresnik grumbled. “We went through a metric ton of bullshit thanks to this guy. We’re not leaving until we get paid.”  
  
“We already got paid,” Raney said dryly. “We got paid up front, remember?”  
  
“Sure, and then we got our asses kicked!”  
  
Kresnik gestured indignantly to his shattered pauldron, the X gouged across Raney’s chestplate, and a thousand other nicks and chips from deflected hard rounds.  
  
“Who’s gonna pay for our dry cleaning, huh?” Kresnik demanded.  
  
“This is bigger than you,” Morwen said. “Bigger than all of us. The Knights have been compromised on a fundamental level. The Garrison is destroyed. There are myriad damages to the station that need to be repaired.”  
  
Kresnik blew out a frustrated sigh. Morwen held up a placating hand.  
  
“However…” Morwen continued. “House Antares is one of the wealthiest noble houses in the colony. They’ll pay for the damage done to the ship, believe me. But I’m confident that they’ll also spare no expense to make sure this embarrassment to their house gets handled… quietly. In light of that… I’m sure something can be arranged.”  
  
Kresnik blinked. He grinned, his tune changing immediately.  
  
“In that case,” Kresnik smiled, nudging an elbow against Raney’s, “how’s about a bonus for us giving you a hand in that parking garage?”  
  
Morwen sighed, and shook her head.  
  
“Mercenaries,” she scoffed.  
  
~*~  
  
Ambrosia stood, her hands clasped, gazing out one of the Sparrow’s plasteel windows. The colors of Tir Tairngire lingered ghostlike in her memory, fading away into the surreal blues of hyperspace. She took a deep breath and sighed, wringing her hands in the fabric of her dress. After a moment, she felt Aabha come up beside her.  
  
“During the Fall,” Ambrosia began, “we were too stubborn to ask for help. We were too confident in ourselves, too firm in our independence, too convinced of our advantages. Every Fae can fly, you see. Every Fae is a born mage, of some type or other. When Malice descended upon Tir Tairngire, let no one say we didn’t put up a fight.”  
  
Ambrosia sighed.  
  
“But the tide turns, as so often they do in war. Our leaders held out to the bitter end, too proud to call for help. At last, they put out the call. But by the time the Order arrived, Tir Tairngire was beyond saving. The fight was over. All they could do was help us run.”  
  
Ambrosia shook her head sadly, watching the streaming lights of hyperspace sail past.  
  
“It’s shameful, what fear and pride can do to a people,” Ambrosia said. “But I did say I would always be honest with you. To tell you the truth, warts and all. Tir Tairngire was the cornerstone of Faerie civilization. It wasn’t perfect; far from it. But it was home.”  
  
“Someone used to tell me that home is something you take with you,” Aabha mused. “Not somewhere you go.”  
  
Ambrosia smiled, and nodded. She reached up and lifted a pendant out from under the neckline of her dress, lifting it up to the light.  
  
“Every Faerie carries a piece of home,” she said. “Do you know what I took?”  
  
“What?” Aabha asked.  
  
“Seeds,” Ambrosia tittered, shaking the vial on its little leather cord. “I brought seeds, so I could bring the colors of home wherever I went. But they don’t grow by themselves, you know. They need water, they need good soil. They need love. Light.”  
  
Aabha nodded, thoughtful. Ambrosia turned to look at her, then glanced over her shoulder to the Sparrow’s lounge, where the whole crew was getting ready to sit down to dinner. Ambrosia smiled, and placed a hand on Aabha’s shoulder.  
  
“I can see you’ve already put down your roots,” Ambrosia mused.  
  
She gently tipped Aabha’s chin up, meeting her eyes.  
  
“Just keep your head up, dearie,” Ambrosia said, “and you’ll see the sun.”  
  
A warm smile spread across Aabha’s face. She tugged at her braid, sheepish. At some point in the course of all the excitement of the past few hours, it had come out of her bun.  
  
“Well, Madam Starflower,” Aabha said, changing the subject. “Would you care to join us for dinner?”  
  
“Please, dearie, just ‘Ambrosia’. I’m no noblewoman anymore,” Ambrosia tutted. She smiled. “And… yes. I would like that very much.”  
  
The Sparrow’s shipboard lights were softer and warmer than the garish brilliance aboard the Kaleidoscope. The crew of the Sparrow had actually grown so much that they couldn’t all fit at the table-- they spilled out onto mismatched chairs and the plush booths lining the walls, everyone talking, laughing, loving.  
  
More than anything, Ambrosia was taken by the colors around her-- Aabha’s red blouse and saffron sari. Shanti’s burnt orange engineering coveralls. Kit’s favorite checkered yellow scarf. Crane’s dark suit lined with green. Yuna in her pale, frost-blue sundress. Robyn in brown leather. Vincent in black. Lily in dove-gray. Lila and Jaki in pure white.  
  
New names, new faces, and every color she could imagine, blending freely together in a room with more warmth and vitality than her lonely conservatory ever had. And when Ambrosia took her place at the table, she fit right in-- glittering green, blue, and violet, like a dragonfly’s wings.  
  
~*~


End file.
